Breaking Dawn: The Darkward Tales Conclude
by Reniefuwa
Summary: Picking up where New Moon left off, a different perspective of the events in BD, with a serious canon-train derailment in favor of a plot line that actually makes a lick of SENSE. Enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

The "Cullen kids" were gathered in our family room, laughing about my latest "gift" to Bella.

"I can't believe you bought her an armored car!" Rosalie burst out.

"Not just any armored car, but a Guardian!" said Emmett. "Fully-tinted windows, missile-proof..." and then we cracked up again, only dying down when Carlisle came into the room.

"What's all this cackling about? You sound like a bunch of teenagers."

"We _are_ a bunch of teenagers," Alice chimed in. That set her and Rosalie giggling again.

Carlisle rolled his eyes. "Right. Just don't overdo it, ok?"

"Too late for...the Guardian!" Jasper yelped, and all semblance of control on our part was lost.

A couple days later, wedding preparations got underway. Charlie had given his blessing, with a little mental "persuasion" from me, and so had Bella's mom Renee, persuasion-free, much to Bella's (and my) surprise. In fact, I would almost say she was ecstatic, particularly about helping to plan it out. At first she worked with Esme, and the rest of us observed with growing horror each decision she made. The woman was hopeless in color coordination and theme-planning. She wanted the wedding colors to be dark turquoise and salmon. SALMON! To top it off, she thought salmon should be served at the reception. Ew, right? Esme was no help; she just agreed with everything Renee suggested, even things that made the men cringe, so tacky were they.

Finally Rosalie put a stop to it by recruiting Alice's help. Renee resisted at first, until Rosalie initiated this exchange with Esme, while Renee was in the room:

"You know what? We should make the wedding colors bright orange and black."

"Oh that sounds lovely!"

"And then, to go along with that, we could serve blackened salmon."

"Oh, how creative! That sounds nice."

At that point, Renee agreed that someone better suited should take Esme's place regarding the planning, and we all breathed huge sighs of relief.

Weeks later, in Bella's room...

"I miss you already," Bella said.

"I don't need to leave. I can stay..."

"Mmm."

It was quiet for a long moment, just the thud of Bella's heart, the broken rhythm of our breathing, and the whisper of our lips moving in synchronization.

I opened my eyes and found hers open, too, staring at my face. It was amazing to me how blind her so-called "love" made her. The way she looked at me like I was the prize rather than the outrageously lucky winner. Then again, I hadn't won yet.

Our gazes locked for a moment; she pulled my face to her own again.

"Definitely staying," I whispered a moment later.

"No, no. It's your bachelor party. You have to go."

She said the words, but her fingers were threaded into my hair, her other hand pressed tighter against the small of my back. Oh yeah, she soooo wanted me.

"Bachelor parties are designed for those who are sad to see the passing of their single days. I couldn't be more eager to have mine behind me. So there's really no point." _Where are you guys? I can't keep this up forever._

"Oh hush!" She pressed her lips to mine to stop me from saying anything else.

I kissed her back for a moment, but I made it obvious I wasn't as into it as before.

"How are your feet?" I asked.

She answered, "Toasty warm."

"Really? No second thoughts? It's not too late to change your mind."

"Are you trying to ditch me?"

I chuckled. "Just making sure. I don't want you to do anything you're not sure about. Oh, for the love of all that's holy!" _**Finally! What have you guys been doing? You're late!**_

"What's wrong?"

I made a show of being frustrated. "You don't have to call my brothers. Apparently Emmett and Jasper are not going to let me bow out tonight."

She clutched me closer for one second and then released me. "Have fun."

There was a squeal against the window—someone deliberately scraping their steel nails across the glass to make a horrible, cover-your-ears, goose-bumps-down-your-spine noise. She shuddered.

"If you don't send Edward out," Emmett—still invisible in the night—hissed menacingly, "we're coming in after him!" _**Took you long enough, guys!**_

"Go," she laughed. "Before they break my house."

I rolled my eyes, then got to my feet in one fluid movement and had my shirt back on in another. I leaned down and kissed her forehead.

"Get to sleep. You've got a big day tomorrow."

"Thanks! That's sure to help me wind down."

"I'll meet you at the altar."

"I'll be the one in white." She smiled.

I chuckled, and then sank into a crouch, muscles coiled like a spring. I launched myself out the window too swiftly for her to follow. I landed with a thud, and Emmett cursed when I almost landed on top of him.

"You'd better not make him late," she murmured, knowing we could hear.

And then Jasper leaped up to stare in Bella's window. "Don't worry, Bella. We'll get him home in plenty of time."

"Don't tell her anything!" Emmett growled.

"Relax," Jasper told her. "We Cullens have our own version. Just a few cougars, a couple of grizzly bears. Pretty much an ordinary night out."

"Thanks, Jasper."

He winked and dropped from sight.

Much later, I lifted my head from the leg of the cougar I was drinking from. I ran my tongue over my upper lip. "Mm, you were right; that is some satisfying blood, brother."

Jasper spoke up from where he knelt over his chosen prey. "Hey, Ed, do you think we should call these in? I mean, they _are_ still alive." As if to emphasize that, my catch groaned slightly underneath me.

"Aw come on, do you really think anyone will care?" Emmett asked.

"Well...yes," Jasper said. "Why don't we call 911 for them? As a sort of wedding present, like donating to a particular charity in her name, y'know?"

"You're always such a softie, Jasper, but you know what? I kind of like that idea. I looked down at my "cougar," the MILF I'd picked up in a bar earlier. I leaned down and murmured, "You got off lucky; you'll probably live tonight because I'm getting married in the morning."

"Call it," I said to Emmett.

He picked up a nearby payphone, dialed 911, and pitched his voice rather high. "Hello? I need an ambulance out here, there's a couple ladies here, I-I think they were attacked or something, they've lost a lot of blood." He paused for a second. "Nah, man, I'm freakin' out here. I'm takin' off." He hung up and looked at us. "And now _we_ should take off." So we did.

Best. Bachelor party. Ever.

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**It has begun! Yeah, so, really more of a prologue I guess, but the wedding will be a lot longer, I promise.**


	2. Big Day

**A/N to marsbareater12: You pointed out that their eyes should be red after feeding on humans. That is correct. I imagined, and apparently forgot to mention, that I'm assuming a couple of things. One, that these vampires get their eye color from whatever sates their hunger/thirst. And two, that they ate some animal before picking up their "cougars," and since they weren't hungry when they fed on them, it would have minimal, if any, effect on their eyes. Hope that made sense.**

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Alice decided that she would give Bella a makeover on the big day, and so she picked her up and took her to our house. I wondered idly if Bella was amused by Alice's reuse of the same decorations used for her graduation party. This time, though, she'd added white satin bows. It may have seemed like frugality, but really, Alice just couldn't be bothered to get new ones.

All of the Cullens nearly got bowled over by the scents that assailed us from the kitchen: orange blossom, freesia, lilac and roses. Renee's idea. I stayed out of the house the first part of that day because of it. It wasn't hard, since we had enough to do setting up for the reception outside.

Finally, everything was ready. Music played, we walked sedately down the aisle, Carlisle acting as Best Man, Alice fairly floating down the aisle. Then the chords changed, the traditional wedding march began, and Bella stepped into view, hanging onto her father's arm for dear life.

I smiled encouragingly, and she smiled back, so smitten. She kept her eyes on me as she walked down the aisle,and finally stopped beside me. Our vows were the simple, traditional words that had been spoken a million times, though never by a couple quite like us. For one thing, at least recently, couples getting married loved each other. Bella had asked Mr. Weber to make only one small change. He obligingly traded the line "till death do us part" for the more appropriate "as long as we both shall live."

As the preacher said his part, Bella suddenly started crying-tears were escaping from her eyes and running slowly down her cheeks. I mentally got a little frantic. Was this what girls did at their own weddings? Was she about to bolt back down the aisle?

_**Relax, Edward, **_came an encouraging thought from Alice. _**Some girls get all teary at mushy stuff like this, even when it's their own mushy stuff. **_I immediately relaxed, and paid more attention to what was going on.

When we reached the part where Bella was supposed to speak, it came out of strangled, but she did say, "I do."

When it was my turn to speak, the words rang clear and victorious. "I do," I said. _Yeah, right, _I thought. Then I leaned down to kiss my new bride.

I began the kiss, and I had to end it; she clung to me, ignoring the titters and the throat-clearing in the audience. Finally, I restrained her and pulled back to look at her. She could see my smile was amused, almost a smirk. But underneath my entertainment at her public exhibition, she imagined she saw a deep joy that echoed her own. It was merely anticipation for what was to come.

The crowd erupted into applause, and I turned our bodies to face our friends and family. She didn't look away from my face to see them.

Her mother nearly tackled her in her enthusiastic embrace, when it was time for us to greet the guests.

The wedding flowed into the reception party smoothly-proof of Alice's flawless planning. It was just twilight over the river. The lights in the trees glimmered as I led Bella through the glass back doors, making the white flowers glow. There were even more flowers out here, serving as a fragrant, airy tent over the dance floor set up on the grass under two of the ancient cedars.

Things slowed down, relaxed as the mellow August evening surrounded us. The little crowd spread out under the soft shine of the twinkle lights, and we were greeted again by the friends we'd just embraced. There was time to talk now, to laugh.

"Congrats, guys," Seth Clearwater told us, ducking his head under the edge of a flower garland. He and his and his mom had decided to attend, as a stand-in for Jacob. His mother, Sue, was tight by his side, eyeing the guests with wary intensity. Her face was thin and fierce, an expression that was accented by her short, severe hairstyle; it was as short as her daughter Leah's. I rather liked Leah, for reasons I couldn't quite articulate.

The reception line was pretty long; it seemed like Alice had invited the whole town, as well as-the Denali Clan. Bella held her breath as they came up and stopped in front of us. Tanya was first, and she embraced me...enthusiastically, molding her body to mine. Bella would have shot daggers at her, if she weren't so busy getting down on herself. Tanya thought at me, _**I'm a little disappointed, you know. Carlisle promised me pictures when he finally caught up with you. The weren't worth the wait.**_

What she _said_ was, "Ah, Edward, I'm missed you."

I chuckled and deftly maneuvered out of the hug, placing my hand lightly on her shoulder and stepping back, as if to get a better look at her. "It's been too long, Tanya. You look well."

"So do you." _**And like you need a good lay. Any time, I'm up for it, tiger.**_

"Let me introduce you to my wife," I said quickly. Maybe if I distracted her, she would stop playing those somewhat enticing images in her head. The Denalis all laughed lightly in response. The thought of a vampire getting married to anyone was, well, hilarious. "Tanya, this is my Bella."

She eyed Bella with a look that was much more speculative than it was resigned, and then reached out to take her hand. "Welcome to the family, Bella." She smiled, a little mocking.

"It's so nice to meet you," Bella replied breathlessly. I guess she'd been holding her breath all that time. Poor girl needs her oxygen.

Tanya glanced at the people waiting behind her. "We'll get to know each other later. We'll have eons of time for that!" Tanya laughed as she and her family moved on.

All the standard traditions were kept. We were blinded by flashbulbs as we held the knife over a spectacular cake. We took turns shoving cake in each other's faces. Bella threw the bouquet right into Angela's surprised hands. Emmett and Jasper howled with laughter as she blushed when I removed her garter-which she'd shimmied down nearly to her ankle-how boring-carefully with my teeth. With a quick wink at her, I shot it straight into Mike Newton's face. Never liked that kid, anyway.

And when the music started, I pulled her into my arms for the customary first dance; she went willingly, despite her fear of dancing in front of an audience. I did all the work, and we twirled effortlessly under the glow of a canopy of lights and the bright flashes from various cameras.

"Enjoying the party, Mrs. Cullen?" I whispered in her ear.

She laughed at the new name. "That will take a while to get used to."

"We have a while," I reminded her, and I leaned down to kiss her while we danced. Cameras clicked feverishly, of course.

The music changed, and Charlie tapped on my shoulder.  
Neither Bella nor her father were very good at partner dancing,so they moved from side to side in a tiny square formation while they talked.

"I'm going to miss you at home, Bella. I'm already lonely."

"I feel just horrible, leaving you to cook for yourself—it's practically criminal negligence. You could  
arrest me."

"I suppose I'll survive the food. Just call me whenever you can."

"I promise."

The music changed again, and Bella switched partners, as did I. After it seemed as if we both danced with everyone in attendance, twice, we were "allowed" to be partnered with each other again. I began to dance the next song, when-

_**Hey, leech!**_ The deliberate mental call startled me briefly, and I turned toward the caller. He was waiting outside the boundary of flowers and artificial illumination. Jacob the Wolf.

_**Yes, **_**darling**_**? **_

He responded with a growl in my head. _**You know why I'm here. AND you know that I'm not above starting trouble at this point.**_

He was right. I played my part. "Oh!" I said, smiling a brilliant smile.

"What is it?" Bella asked.

"A surprise wedding gift."

"Huh?"

I didn't answer; I just started dancing again, spinning Bella the opposite way we'd been headed before, away from the lights and then into the deep swath of night that ringed the luminous dance floor. We didn't pause until we reached the dark side of one of the huge cedars. Then I looked straight into the blackest shadow.

"Thank you," I said to the darkness. "This is very... kind of you."

"Kind is my middle name," a husky familiar voice answered from the black night. "Can I cut in?"

"Jacob!" Bella choked out. "Jacob!"

"Hey there, Bells."

He reached out, and she stumbled over to him. He caught her in an embrace.

I let him have his moment; Bella was mine now. I wandered off to give them some privacy-the illusion of privacy, anyway. They spoke in quiet, all-too-predictable conversation...

"I don't know if I get more than just this one dance," he said. "I'd better make the best of it." They moved to the rhythm of the music a short distance away.

"I'm glad I came," Jacob said quietly after a moment. "I didn't think I would. But it's good to see you... one more time. Not as sad as I'd thought it would be."

"I don't want you to feel sad."

"I know that. And I didn't come tonight to make you feel guilty."

"No—it makes me very happy that you came. It's the best gift you could have  
given me."

He laughed. "That's good, because I didn't have time to stop for a real present."

"Consciously or subconsciously?"

He took a deep breath before answering. "I don't really know. I guess I've been wandering back this direction for a while, and maybe it's because I was headed here. But it wasn't until this morning that I really started running. I didn't know if I could make it." He laughed. "You wouldn't believe how weird this feels-walking around on two legs again. And clothes! And then it's more bizarre because it feels weird. I didn't expect that. I'm out of practice with the whole human thing."

"It would have been a shame to miss seeing you like this, though. That's worth the trip right there. You look unbelievable, Bella. So beautiful."

"Alice invested a lot of time in me today. The dark helps, too."

"It's not so dark for me, you know."

"Right." Werewolf senses. It was easy to forget all the things he could do, he seemed so human. Especially right now.

"You cut your hair."

"Yeah. Easier, you know. Thought I'd better take advantage of the hands."

"It looks good." _No it doesn't, Bella, don't lie._

He snorted. "Right. I did it myself, with rusty kitchen shears." He paused for several moments. "Are you happy, Bella?"

"Yes."

"Okay." he shrugged. "That's the main thing, I guess."

"How are you, Jacob? Really?"

"I'm fine, Bella, really. You don't need to worry about me anymore. You can stop bugging Seth. But enough about me. You're the star today." He chuckled. "I bet you're just loving that. Center of attention."

"Yeah. Can't get enough attention."

He laughed and then stared over at the party going on nearby. "I'll give them this much," he said. "They know how to throw a party."

"Alice is an unstoppable force of nature."

He sighed. "Song's over. Do you think I could get another one? Or is that asking too much?"

"You can have as many dances as you want."

He laughed. "That would be interesting. I think I'd better stick with two, though. Don't want to start talk." They were silent for several moments. "You'd think I'd be used to telling you goodbye by now," he murmured. A pause, and then he gasped. "You're not supposed to be the one crying, Bella."

"Everyone cries at weddings," she offered.

"This is what you want, right?"

"Right."

"Then smile. I'm going to try to remember you like this. Pretend that..."

"That what? That I died?" Bella demanded.

He clenched his teeth. He was struggling with himself-with his decision to make his presence here a gift and not a judgment. I could guess what he wanted to say. "No," he finally answered. "But I'll see you this way in my head. Pink cheeks. Heartbeat. Two left feet. All of that."

She deliberately stomped on his foot in response.

He smiled. "That's my girl." He started to say something else and then snapped his mouth closed. Struggling again, teeth gritted against the words he didn't want to say.

"What is it, Jake? Just tell me. You can tell me anything."

"I... I don't have anything to tell you."

"Oh please. Spit it out."

"It's true. It's not... it's-it's a question. It's something I want you to tell me"

"Ask me."

He struggled for another minute and then exhaled. "I shouldn't. It doesn't matter. I'm just morbidly curious."

Bella understood. "It's not tonight, Jacob," she whispered.

"Oh," he said, trying to smother his relief. "Oh."

"When?" he whispered.

"I don't know for sure. A week or two, maybe."

His voice changed, took on a defensive, mocking edge. "What's the holdup?"

"I just didn't want to spend my honeymoon writhing in pain."

"You'd rather spend it how? Playing checkers? Ha ha."

"Very funny."

"Kidding, Bells. But, honestly, I don't see the point. You can't have a real honeymoon with your vampire, so why go through the motions? Call a spade a spade. This isn't the first time you've put this off. That's a good thing, though," he said, suddenly earnest. "Don't be embarrassed about it."

...until Bella revealed that she intended to have a _real Honeymoon_ before she was turned.

"I'm not putting anything off," she snapped. "And yes I _can_ have a real honeymoon! I can do anything I want! Butt out!" _Like an independent toddler, how cu-wait, what?_

He stopped their slow circling abruptly. Then his eyes bulged wide with a strange kind of confused horror. "What?" he gasped. "What did you say?"

"About what... ? Jake? What's wrong?"

"What do you mean? Have a real honeymoon? While you're still human? Are you kidding? That's a sick joke, Bella!"

Yeah, it was. I didn't know who was more surprised, me or him. I was actually worried that I really would break her in that state, and she wanted it anyway?

"I said butt out, Jake. This is so not your business. I shouldn't have... we shouldn't even be talking about this. It's private—"

His hands gripped the tops of her arms, wrapping all the way around, fingers overlapping."Ow, Jake! Let go!"

Then he shook her.

"Bella! Have you lost your mind? You can't be that stupid! Tell me you're joking!"

He shook her again. His hands, tight as tourniquets, were quivering, sending vibrations deep into my bones.

"Jake—stop!"

Time for the knight to come riding in. "Take your hands off her!" My voice was cold as ice, sharp as razors.

Behind Jacob, there was a low snarl from the black night, and then another, overlapping the first.

"Jake, bro, back away," I heard Seth Clearwater urge. "You're losing it."

Jacob seemed frozen as he was, his horrified eyes wide and staring.

"You'll hurt her," Seth whispered. "Let her go."

"Now!" I snarled.

Jacob's hands dropped to his sides, and I took the opportunity to spirit Bella away. I carried her about a half dozen feet away from where she'd been standing. There were two enormous wolves  
braced between me and Jacob, there to prevent a fight.

And Seth—gangly, fifteen-year-old Seth—had his long arms around Jacob's shaking body, and he was tugging him away. If Jacob phased with Seth so close...

"C'mon, Jake. Let's go."

"I'll kill you," Jacob said, his voice so choked with rage that it was low as a whisper. His eyes, focused on me, burned with fury. "I'll kill you myself! I'll do it now!" He shuddered convulsively. He was trying not to shift, even as everthing in him wanted to give itself up to monster-the animal, all primal instinct and emotion.

The biggest wolf, the black one, growled sharply.

"Seth, get out of the way," I hissed.

Seth tugged on Jacob again. Jacob was so bewildered with rage that Seth was able to yank him a few feet farther back. "Don't do it, Jake. Walk away. C'mon."

Sam-the bigger wolf, the black one-joined Seth then. He put his massive head  
against Jacob's chest and shoved. The three of them-Seth towing, Jake trembling, Sam pushing-disappeared swiftly into the darkness.

"It's all right now, Bella," I murmured. "Let's get back."

"But Jake—"

"Sam has him in hand. He's gone."

"Edward, I'm so sorry. I was stupid—I have such a big mouth! Why would I... I shouldn't have let him get to me like that. What was I thinking?"

"Don't worry," I said encouragingly. "We need to get back to the reception before someone notices our absence."

"Give me two seconds," she pleaded. Oh, right-she would need to gather herself before appearing in front of everyone-emotionally, if nothing else.

We began walking back. "Are you-" I began.

I'm fine," Bella said. "I can't believe I did that. What's wrong with me?"

"It's over," I said. "Let's not think of it again tonight."

She took a deep breath and smiled and offered, "By the way, I love you."

I smiled just a little in return. "That's why we're here."

"You're monopolizing the bride," Emmett said, coming up behind my shoulder. I hadn't even heard him coming. "Let me dance with my little sister. This could be my last chance to make her blush." He laughed loudly, as unaffected as he usually was by any serious atmosphere. Her dance time was monopolized once more with random guests, and by the time she got back to me I was ready for a little "tease Bella" time.

I wrapped my arms around her and began to kiss her. I made it a serious kind of kiss-intense, slow but building...

Then I heard Alice call, "Bella! It's time!" I felt a brief flicker of irritation with my sister for the interruption. I ignored her; I moved my lips against hers, more urgently than before. Her heart began racing and her palms grew slick with sweat. She was getting hot and bothered, and I was loving it.

"Do you want to miss your plane?" Alice demanded, right next to me now. "I'm sure you'll have a lovely honeymoon camped out in the airport waiting for another flight."

I turned my face slightly to murmur, "Go away, Alice," before pressing my lips to hers again.

"Bella, do you want to wear that dress on the airplane?" she demanded.

Bella was a little beyond caring at this point.

Alice growled quietly. "I'll tell her where you're taking her, Edward. So help me, I will." _**Or, even better, I'll take her there myself. We'll have our **_**own **_**honeymoon, without you, and I'll show her all the delights of lesbian lov-**_

"You're awfully small to be so hugely irritating," I said, deliberately interrupting the rest of what she would have 'said.'

"I didn't pick out the perfect going-away dress to have it wasted," she snapped back, taking Bella's hand. "Come with me, Bella."

I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when Alice and Renee finally pronounced her ready to leave. She took my outstretched hand but leaned away, scanning the little crowd that was waiting to see us off.

"Dad?" she asked, eyes searching.

"Over here." I pulled her through the guests; they made a pathway for us. We found Charlie leaning awkwardly against the wall behind everyone else, looking a little like he was hiding. The red rims around his eyes explained why.

"Oh, Dad!"

Bella hugged him around the waist, tears streaming again-she sure was crying a lot tonight. He patted her back. "There, now. You don't want to miss your plane."

"I love you forever, Dad," she told him. "Don't forget that."

"You, too, Bells. Always have, always will."

She kissed his cheek at the same time that he kissed hers. It was sweet; I felt like I was getting a toothache just watching.

"Call me," he said.

"Soon," she promised, knowing this was all she could promise. Just a phone call. Her father and mother could not be allowed to see her again; she would be too different, and much, much too dangerous. And, as far as they knew, dead.

"Go on, then," he said gruffly. "Don't want to be late."

The guests made another aisle for us. I pulled her close me as we made our escape. "Are you ready?" I asked.

"I am," she said, and off we went.

Everyone applauded when I kissed her again on the doorstep. Then we rushed to the car as the rice storm began. Most of it went wide, but someone, probably Emmett, threw with uncanny precision, and I caught a lot of handfuls on my back.

The car was decorated with more flowers that trailed in streamers along its length, and long gossamer ribbons that were tied to a dozen shoes dangling behind the bumper. Then we were inside and I was speeding us away as Bella waved out the window and called "I love you" to the porch, where our families waved back.

The last image she registered was one of her parents. Phil had both arms wrapped tenderly around Renee. She had one arm tight around his waist but had her free hand reached out to hold Charlie's. So many different kinds of love, harmonious in this one moment. It seemed a very hopeful picture to her. Too bad the future held something very different for her, if I had my way.

As we turned onto the black highway and I floored the accelerator, we heard a noise over the purr of the engine, coming from the forest behind us. But we said nothing as the sound slowly faded in the  
distance.

The piercing, heartbroken howling grew fainter and then disappeared entirely. To be honest, I felt a little sorry for him, in that moment. He imagined awful things happening to this person who he really loved, and little did he know that I planned for them to be much worse.


	3. Wedding Night

**A/N: Once again, my own version of the story that I think makes a lot more sense, in light of evidence revealed in the original text.**

**On another note, I should have stated this way back in Chapter one, but in spite of the light-hearted atmosphere of its beginning, this story will probably take on a much more serious tone by the end. I mean *SPOILER ALERT* that people will die. Maybe someone you love, maybe someone you hate, maybe someone you love to hate. It all ties in with my desire to make a comprehensible story (something Smeyer failed to do, in my opinion) and what consequences I think certain characters' actions will have.**

**That said, enjoy Chapter 3, and don't forget to send me your favorite quotes!**

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"Houston?" She asked, raising her eyebrows when we reached the gate in Seattle.

"Just a stop along the way," I said with a grin.

She dozed off on the flight, but was still groggy as we walked through the terminals, and kept dropping off with every blink. It took her a second to catch up with what was going on when we stopped at the international counter to check in for our next flight.

"Rio de Janeiro?" she asked with slightly more uncertainty.

"Another stop," I told her.

The flight to South America was long but comfortable in the wide first-class seat, with Bella curled up in my lap. She slept deeply on this flight and awoke more alert as we circled toward the airport with the light of the setting sun slanting through the plane's windows.

Next, we took a taxi through the dark, teeming, living streets of Rio. Unable to understand a word of the Portuguese instructions I gave to the driver, Bella guessed that we were off to find a hotel before the next leg of our journey. She freaked a little bit, thinking about that. The taxi continued through the swarming crowds until they thinned somewhat, and we were nearing the extreme eastern edge of the city, heading toward the ocean.

We stopped at the docks.

I led the way down the long line of white yachts moored in the night-blackened water. The boat we stopped at, sort of the Cullen's "family boat," was smaller than the others, sleeker, obviously built for speed instead of space. Still luxurious, though. Carlisle bought this boat for Esme some years ago, because when she had first ridden on an ocean liner, she had never been so animated, and I had to admit, she was quite the looker when she was excited. Don't judge me!

I leaped in lightly, still carrying the bags. I dropped them on the deck and turned to help Bella carefully over the edge.

Bella watched in silence while I prepared the boat for departure, weighing anchor and untying it from the dock.

As we headed due east into the open ocean, I caught a stray thought from Bella. She was staring in wonderment at the exhilarated smile on my face, the one produced by any form of speed. The boat plunged through the waves and we were showered with sea spray. I loved the ocean, and the feel of traveling over the top of it. A snippet of a song flitted through my head:

_I stand over tides of ocean,_

_an eager grace at my feet_

_The rhythm of speed surrounds me_

_and my heart throbs with its beat._

Finally the curiosity Bella had suppressed so long got the best of her. "Are we going much farther?" she asked.

"About another half hour." I looked at her hands, clenched on the seat, and just smiled.

Twenty minutes later, I called her name over the roar of the engine.

"Bella, look there." I pointed straight ahead; we would come up on it soon.

There was only blackness at first, and the moon's white trail across the water. But eventually a low black shape broke into the sheen of moonlight on the waves. As we got closer, the silhouette became more detailed. The shape grew into a squat, irregular triangle, with one side trailing longer than the other before sinking into the waves. We drew closer, and the outline grew feathery, swaying to the light breeze.

Then she realized what it was, her eyes refocused and the pieces all made sense: a small island rose out of the water ahead of us, waving with palm fronds, a beach glowing pale in the light of the moon.

"Where are we?" she whispered in wonder while I shifted course, heading around to the north end of the island.

I heard her, despite the noise of the engine, and smiled. "This is Isle Esme."

I slowed the boat, and drew up alongside a short dock constructed of wooden planks, bleached into whiteness by the moon. The engine cut off, and the silence that followed was profound. There was nothing but the waves, slapping lightly against the boat, and the rustle of the breeze in the  
palms. The air was warm, moist, and fragrant-like the steam left behind after a hot shower.

"Isle Esme?" she asked quietly.

"A gift from Carlisle; Esme offered to let us borrow it." Not really, but it sounded good; it was just in the family. I think it sounded more romantic or something. Whatever, it worked; she was suitably impressed.

I placed the suitcases on the dock and then turned back, smiling as I reached for her. When she reached out for me, instead of taking her hand, I pulled her right up into my arms.

"Aren't you supposed to wait for the threshold?" she asked, breathless, as I sprung lightly out of the boat.

I grinned. "I'm nothing if not thorough." I immediately set her down though; I had other things to carry. Gripping the handles of both huge steamer trunks, we walked up the dock and onto a pale sand pathway through the dark vegetation.

For a short while it was pitch black in the jungle-like growth, and then a warm light appeared ahead. The light was a house-the two bright, perfect squares were wide windows framing a front door-then she mentally freaked again, more forcefully than before, worse than when she thought we were headed for a hotel. This was beginning to seem like a bad idea.

Her heart thudded against her ribs, and she started almost gasping for breath. I looked down to see if she was all right, but she refused to meet my gaze. Soon her nervousness was rubbing off on me. The last thing I wanted was to deal with a hysterical virgin girl. I'd never dealt with either kind individually; I didn't want to deal with both qualities at the same time.

I set the suitcases on the deep porch to open the doors; they were unlocked. I looked down at Bella, waiting until she met my gaze before I picked her up carefully and stepped through the threshold.

I carried her through the house, both of us very quiet, flipping on lights as we went. This place had the same pale-on-pale color scheme preferred by the Cullens; it felt like home. It was our only truly permanent residence.

Bella's heartbeat still hadn't slowed down any. I stopped and turned on the last light.

The room was big and white, and the far wall was mostly glass-standard decor for us. Outside, the moon was bright on white sand and, just a few yards away from the house, glistening waves. But Bella wasn't interested in that part. She was more focused on the absolutely huge white bed in the center of the room, hung with billowy clouds of mosquito netting.

I set her on her feet.

"I'll... go get the luggage." She really needed to settle down; a hundred fifty beats per minute could not be a healthy heart rate, even for a teen.

The room was warm, stuffier than the tropical night outside. When I came back, I found Bella standing by the window. The heat had made her perspire. She didn't hear me return. I caressed the back of her neck with one finger, wiping away the drop of perspiration.

"It's a little hot here," I said apologetically. "I thought...that would be best."

"Thorough," she murmured, and I chuckled. It was a nervous sound, I think. Great. She was freaking so much she really _was_ making my nervous.

"I tried to think of everything that would make this... easier," I offered. I frantically thought of things to say that would make her calm down. Seriously, was this _that_ big of a deal? Well, maybe for her it was. "I was wondering," I said slowly, "if... first... maybe you'd like to take a midnight swim with me?" I took a deep breath, thinking of what else I could say. "The water will be very warm. This is the kind of beach you approve of."

"Sounds nice." Her voice broke. _Yeah. You sound practically eager, there._

"I'm sure you'd like a human minute or two... It was a long journey."

She nodded stiffly. It felt distinctly uncomfortable in here.

I brushed my lips briefly against her throat, just below her ear. She shivered at the familiar sensation. I chuckled once and said, "Don't take too long, Mrs. Cullen." I moved my lips down her neck to the tip of her shoulder. "I'll wait for you in the water."

I walked past her to the French door that opened right onto the beach sand. On the way, I shrugged out of my shirt, dropping it on the floor, and then slipped through the door into the moonlit night.

I really did go for a swim, and Bella apparently had a nervous breakdown inside. I was sure there was nothing I could do at this point, so I remained in the ocean and let her deal. I turned out to be a good thing that I stayed out there, because her antics were hilarious. First, she stumbled toward the giant suitcase that Alice had packed for her. She pawed through the neatly folded piles-looking for something familiar and comfortable, then realized with something akin to horror that there was an awful lot of sheer lace and skimpy satin in my hands. Lingerie. Very lingerie-ish lingerie, with French tags.

_Alice, you're going to pay for this,_ she thought. _I don't know how or when, but you will pay for this._

I had a giggle fit over her reaction to that discovery. If she acted like this over _lingerie_, what would she do when she saw the Rumpus Room for the first time? Probably faint. Which, in retrospect, was probably the worst thing she could do in that situation. Emmett-or Alice, come to think of it-would have a field day with a passed-out vampire to string up and play with...after she came to, of course.

Anyway, Bella gave up on clothing, then took a couple of steadying breaths and went to the mirrors above the long stretch of counters. She judged her appearance sorely lacking, especially after traveling all day. She grabbed her brush and yanked it harshly through her snarls until the bristles were full of hair.

She brushed her teeth meticulously, twice.

She washed her face and splashed water on the back of her neck, then her arms, and finally decided to just give up and take a shower. She reasoned that although it was ridiculous to shower before swimming, she needed to calm down, and hot water was one reliable way to do that.

Also, shaving her legs again seemed like a pretty good idea. At this rate, our "moonlight swim" would become a "morning dip" by the time she got out here.

When she was done, she wrapped herself in a huge white towel.

Then she was faced with another dilemma: What to wear? _Shouldn't the question be 'What _not_ to wear?' And shouldn't the answer be 'everything'?_

She started to feel a little dizzy, apparently a full-scale panic attack on the way. She wound up on the cool tile floor in her towel and her head between her knees. This girl shouldn't be having sex, but seriously, was _I_ going to say no? No..._Wait, what? Eh, whatever._

What she was really experiencing, I suspected, was some kind of performance anxiety-the particular kind felt by those having sex for the first time, with very little knowledge about it beyond basic mechanics (insert rod A into slot B). I briefly imagined her chained to the wall of the Rumpus Room, me slowly tracing her body with the handle of a whip, her limbs trembling with anticipation and rampant desire-then abruptly realized that that probably wouldn't happen for another fifty years, at this rate. Maybe I should let someone "initiate" her after all...

Finally, she walked out the open glass door onto the powder-fine sand. Everything was black-and-white, leached colorless by the moon. She walked slowly across the beach, pausing beside the curved tree where I had left the rest of my clothes.

I wasn't hard to find. I stood waist deep in the midnight water, staring up at the moon. She was pretty skittish at this point; I didn't want to scare her off. Have you ever been inside the head of someone who _wants_ you? Here's what I look like, for the perspective of _my_ person who wanted me: The light of the moon turned my skin a perfect white, like the sand, like the moon itself, and made my wet hair black as the ocean. She stared at the smooth lines of my back, my shoulders, my arms, my neck, the flawless shape of me...I could almost physically feel my ego being stroked.

I waited, faintly amused, as Bella's uncertainty slowly faded, to be replaced by an innocent simple desire. She slipped the towel off without hesitation, leaving it on the tree with my clothes, and walked out into the white light; it made her pale as the snowy sand, too.

I could hear the sound of her footsteps as she walked to the water's edge. I didn't turn; I was waiting for her to choose to come out here with me. She might still freak out and run away. She stood at the edge of the waves for a moment, then stepped in, walking carefully across the invisible ocean floor. She waded through the weightless current till she was at my side, and then placed her hand lightly over my hand lying on the water.

"Beautiful," she said, looking up at the moon, too.

"It's all right," I answered. I turned slowly to face her; little waves rolled away from me and broke against her skin. I twisted my hand up so that I could twine our fingers beneath the surface of the water. She was still trembling, slightly. I realized how much courage it must have taken her to come out here, as scared as she was.

Maybe an ego-booster of her own would help. "But I wouldn't use the word beautiful," I said. "Not with you standing here in comparison."

She half-smiled, then raised her free hand-it didn't tremble now-and placed it over my heart. Such an innocent, virginal touch; but so eager at the same time. I shuddered the tiniest bit at her touch. My breath came rougher now.

"I promised we would _try_," I whispered to her. "If… if I do something wrong, if I hurt you, you must tell me at once." _Offer one of those "good ol' boy" assurances..._

She nodded solemnly, locking eyes with me. She took another step through the waves and leaned her head against my chest.

"Don't be afraid," she murmured. "We belong together."

If she only knew. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her against me, summer and winter. Her body almost seemed to be heating up; the lusty wench was trying to get out again; well, this time she just might.

"Forever," I agreed, and then pulled her gently into deeper water.

I'm not proud of what happened that night. Honestly, I didn't expect it. I had imagined many different scenarios that could occur at that point, but this was not one of them.

I fucked a corpse.

Not literally, I mean she was alive and warm and everything, but almost as soon as I penetrated her, her body went into a kind of paralysis and she fainted or something. I imagine it had something to do with something as cold me being pushed that close to the core of her body; it shut down and tried to regroup, either "rebooting" or trying to go into a kind of hibernation mode.

Whatever happened, she was unconscious before I even realized it. It took a long time. I had given her a lot of bruises, apparently. I immediately realized that was not a good thing, especially as I had not even noticed.

It turned out to be all right though, because in the end, it seemed that she didn't notice either. I was with her when she woke the next morning, lightly tracing random patterns on her bare back. Her stomach growled, and she chuckled.

"What's so funny?" I asked, slightly bewildered.

Her stomach growled again, and she laughed. "You just can't escape being human for very long."

Her apparent ignorance of what went on and my own perverse curiosity-had it really been _that_ unmemorable?-had me glaring at the ceiling, until Bella finally wondered what was up.

"Edward," she said, a strange little catch in her throat, "what is it? What's wrong?"

"You have to ask?" My voice was hard, cynical.

Her first instinct, was to wonder what she had done wrong. Guess I couldn't blame her. That's what I had thought too my first time, although for me it was actually _during_ my first time, and since _that_ was unfortunately with Carlisle...it was more like "what did I do so wrong to deserve this?"

She thought that it had all been simpler than she was expecting; we'd fit together like two matching puzzle pieces. More proof that she belonged with me, or something sappy like that.

_Oh, dur. _ I'd forgotten that I had done that. The night before, I had tried to leave an impression in her mind of happiness, or at least pleasure, or something good or at least better than, well, nothing.

"You're upset," she continued. "I don't understand. Did I… ?"

I narrowed my eyes, still feeling perverse, for some reason. "How badly are you hurt, Bella? The truth-don't try to downplay it."

"Hurt?" she repeated; her voice came out higher than usual.

I raised one eyebrow, prompting her to figure it out for herself.

She made a cursory examination, stretching her body, tensing and flexing her muscles. She was stiff and sore, true, but mostly there was the odd sensation that her bones all had become unhinged at the joints. Hmm. Perhaps I had overdone it with the feel-good feelings; her senses seemed a bit muddled.

Then she suddenly got irritated at me.

"Why would you jump to that conclusion? I've never been better than I am now."

"Stop that," I ordered.

"Stop _what_?"

"Stop acting like I'm not a monster for having agreed to this." For some reason I suddenly really wanted her to take a good look at what she was getting into, what she would commit to for the rest of her existence.

"Edward!" she whispered, really upset now. "Don't ever say that."

"Look at yourself, Bella. Then tell me I'm not a monster."

She followed my instruction unthinkingly and then gasped. She stared for several moments at the down that nearly covered her.

"Why am I covered in feathers?" she asked.

I exhaled impatiently. "I bit a pillow. Or two. That's not what I'm talking about." The pillow-biting thing was Emmett's idea. Something about 'showing how dangerous I am' or...something. Now I think he was just joking. _I am not telling him about this._

"You…bit a pillow? _Why?_"

"Look, Bella!" I almost growled. I took her hand-carefully-and stretched her arm out. "Look at _that_."

This time, she saw what I meant. Under the dusting of feathers, large purplish bruises were beginning to blossom across the pale skin of her arm. Her eyes followed the trail they made up to her shoulder, and then down across her ribs. She pulled her hand free to poke at a discoloration on her left arm. "Oh," she said. She tried to remember this-to remember pain-but couldn't.

I mentally sighed. My manipulation had worked, better than I'd hoped, apparently.

"I'mnot sorry, Edward. I'm… I can't even tell you. I'm _so _happy. That doesn't cover it. Don't be angry. Don't. I'm really f—"

"Do not say the word _fine,_" I said coldly. "If you value my sanity, do not say that you are fine."

"But I _am_," she whispered.

"Bella, don't."

"No. Don't ruin this," she said. "I. Am. Happy. Why can't you just read my mind already? It's so _inconvenient _to be a mental mute!"

My eyes widened a little bit. "That's a new one. You _love_ that I can't read your mind." It would make things a whole lot easier if she knew-

"Not today."-oh. It was a purely circumstantial thing, I got it.

"Why?"

She threw her hands up in frustration. "Because all this angst would be completely unnecessary if you could see how I feel right now! Or five minutes ago, anyway. I _was _perfectly happy. Totally and completely "blissed out." Now-well, I'm sort of pissed, actually. You are _killing my buzz_, Edward."

I almost spilled the beans right then. Her response was just so immature and unwarranted I almost told her everything just to prove her smug ass wrong. That I actually _could_ read her mind and in fact had been doing it since day one; that I had been using that ability to manipulate her thoughts and emotions; that last night hadn't actually happened, it was just more manipulation on my part. Lucky for me, one hundred-plus years of existence had given me some measure of self-control. Instead of saying all that, I just rolled my eyes and shook my head.

She let out a breath and tried to speak more calmly. "We knew this was going to be tricky. I thought that was assumed. And then-well, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. And this is really nothing." She brushed her fingers along her arm. "I think for a first time, not knowing what to expect, we did amazing. With a little practice—"

_WHAT?_

"Assumed? Did you _expect _this, Bella? Were you anticipating that I would hurt you? Were you thinking it would be _worse_? Do you consider the _experiment_ a _success_ because you can walk away from it? No broken bones-that equals a victory?" My response was biting and sarcastic. And, in my opinion, perfectly reasonable. _This girl is out to hurt herself. That has to be listed under some disorder somewhere; maybe I should ask Carlisle about it later. Who's using who now? Well played, Bella; well played._

When she spoke again, it was quieter. "I didn't know what to expect-but I definitely did not expect how… how… just wonderful and perfect it was." _Oh, for the love of-apparently I overdid the "good feeling" suggestion. _Her voice dropped to a whisper, and her gaze slipped down to her hands. "I mean, I don't know how it was for you, but it was like that for me."

I pulled her chin back up with a finger.

"Is that what you're worried about? That I didn't _enjoy _myself?" I asked.

Her gaze stayed down. "I know it's not the same. You're not human. I just was trying to explain that, for a human, well, I can't imagine that life gets any better than that."

_Oh, I see. This is the part where she thinks, 'was it...was I...not good?' More ego-boosting time._

"Sorry." I frowned slightly. "I didn't consider that you would construe the way I feel about what I did to you to mean that last night wasn't… well, the best night of my existence. But I don't want to think of it that way, not when you were . . ."

Her lips curved up a little at the edges. "Really? The best ever?" she asked in a small, hopeful voice.

I took her face between my hands. "I spoke to Carlisle after you and I made our bargain, hoping he could help me. Of course he warned me that this would be very dangerous for you." I really had spoken with him about this possibility. "He had faith in me, though-faith I didn't deserve." Actually, he thought it was hilarious. Suggested some S&M techniques, if she "really got into it."

"I spoke to my brothers, too. They told me it was a very great pleasure. Second only to drinking human blood." I furrowed my brow, remembering that conversation. Emmett had had some suggestions of his own, inspired by the latest issue of _Taboo_ magazine. Pretty sure it would not have gone over well with Bella. "But I've tasted your blood, and there could be no blood more potent than _that._… I don't think they were wrong, really. Just that it was different for us. Something more." Just feeding the little ego another morsel.

"It _was _more. It was everything," she insisted. Then she grabbed my chin and leaned forward until our faces were inches apart. "You listen to me, Edward Cullen. I am not pretending anything for your sake, okay? _I've _never been so happy in all my life-I wasn't this happy when you decided that you loved me more than you wanted to kill me, or the first morning I woke up and you were there waiting for me, or when you said 'I do' and I realized that, somehow, I get to keep you forever. Those are the happiest memories I have, and this is better than any of it. So just deal with it."

"You're right. The past is past and I can't do anything to change it. I'll do whatever I can to make you happy now."

She glared at me suspiciously. "Whatever makes me happy?" Her stomach growled at the same time that she asked.

"You're hungry," I said quickly. I got swiftly out of the bed, stirring up a cloud of feathers.

"So, why exactly did you decide to ruin Esme's pillows?" Bella asked, sitting up and shaking more down from her hair.

I had already pulled on a pair of loose khaki pants, and stood by the door rumpling my hair, dislodging a few feathers of my own.

"Um...We're just lucky it was the pillows and not you?" _Only it kind of _was_ you. _I inhaled deeply and then shook my head, shaking off the dark thought.

Bella went to the bathroom to check herself out more thoroughly.

"I'll _never _get this all out of my hair!" she shrieked, and pointed to her head, where it looked like a chicken was nesting. She started picking at the feathers. "This isn't going to work," she sighed after a minute. "It's all dried in. I'm going to have to try to wash it out." She turned and gave me a teasing, come-hither grin. "Do you want to help me?"

"I'd better find some food for you," I said in a quiet voice, and left to go to the kitchen. Truth be told, I was getting more and more irritated over her smugness regarding her "first time" that, also truth be told, hadn't really happened, as far as she was concerned. She wasn't conscious during any of "the main event." Fine, she wanted to be smug, and hang on to her oh-so-vivid "memories" of her first time? Let her. Because I abruptly decided that that was all she would get for a while.

While eating breakfast, she leaned across the table to kiss me. I kissed her back, and then deliberately stiffened and leaned away.

She gritted her teeth, and the question she asked came out sounding like an accusation. "You aren't going to touch me again while we're here, are you?"

I half-smiled and raised my hand to stroke her cheek.

She leaned her face into my palm, but looked at me pleadingly and said, "You know that's not what I meant."

I sighed and dropped my hand. "I know. And you're right." Didn't that chick from "Wide Sargasso Sea" go crazy from sexual frustration, or something? _It'll be fun to see what she does in light of this announcement. _I paused, lifting my chin slightly, then spoke again with firm conviction. "I will not make love with you until you've been changed. I will never hurt you again."

I had a feeling the next several days would be highly amusing.


	4. Sex and Surprises

Chapter 4

She started the very next day. As soon as she sat down to eat the eggs I made her, she tried to broach the subject.

"Um, Edward? I was wondering...if today...we could try, you know...um..."

How cute, she couldn't even say it. "Oh, you mean the snorkeling?"

Confusion crossed her features. "What?"

"I promised to take you snorkeling. Don't tell me _you_ forgot."

"Well, no, but-"

"Then it's settled. As soon as you're finished, you can put on one of your cute swimsuits and we'll explore the ocean floor around the island." I leaned back in my chair and folded my hands behind my head. It was so amusing when she got flustered, and it was so easy to fluster her; it never got any less fun for me, either.

The next day she confronted me wearing a modest little satin nightie; it was a "subtle" hint that she didn't want to go snorkeling. So we didn't.

"You are _not_ wearing _that_ to go spelunking, dear," I said as soon as she entered the room.

"Spe-what?" she asked, confused again.

"Spelunking-you know, cave exploring. There are tidal caves all over this island, and I want to take you to see as many as we can. I want you to have fun, my _angel_." She blushed when I called her that, and quickly acquiesced to that day's plans for adventure.

Bella began choosing more risque items. To the leopard-print spaghetti string slip I said, "You'll need to wear something more durable than _that_ to go hiking in the jungle."

"Oh, ok," she muttered, immediately crestfallen.

To the red silk second-skin (which I secretly approved of) I said, "That is hardly appropriate attire for spending several hours out in the sun."

She sighed and rolled her eyes before going back into the room to change again.

For the next several days, I made sure Bella's days were filled with physically exhausting entertainment. We snorkeled in the ocean, explored the small jungle that ringed the rocky little peak, visited the parrots that lived in the canopy on the south end of the island, watched the sunset from the rocky western cove, swam with the porpoises that played in the warm, shallow waters there. Or at least, she did; when I was in the water, the porpoises disappeared as if a shark was near; they're smart like that. Based on that, I'll let you draw conclusions about Bella's intelligence on your own.

She became more and more frustrated each time I rebuffed her advances. She knew what was going on, and I never tried to hide or deny it. I was trying to keep her busy, distracted, and physically engaged, so she that wouldn't continue badgering me about having sex. If she tried to talk me into taking it easy with one of the million DVDs under the big-screen plasma TV, I would lure her out of the house with enticing phrases like _coral reefs _and _submerged caves _and _sea turtles_.

She drooped over her dinner every night; once she actually fell asleep right at the table and I'd had to carry her to bed. The idea was that she would be so worn out and hungry by the end of the day that she snarfed down almost enough for two people. Then, full and worn out, she could barely keep her eyes open. All part of the plan.

I had to give her props for persistence. In spite all my discouragement, she didn't give up. She tried reasoning, pleading, and grouching, but all to no avail, because I was as determined as she was. Besides, she was usually unconscious before she could really press her case far. That didn't stop her from playing in her dreams, though. They were vivid and imaginative. Who knew such a saucy wench lived inside that girl?

In the beginning, I would "check in" on Bella to see what she had decided to wear that day; eventually I didn't even peek; I wanted to see what she would be wearing when she graced my presence _this_ time. She walked in, and her choice for one night was _killer_. It was black, lacy, and there wasn't enough to it to call it a garment. She flushed a little when she saw the effect her lingerie had on me this time: my eyes widened a bit and I couldn't help but look at least a little bit appreciative.

"What do you think?" she asked, pirouetting so that I could see every angle.

I cleared my throat and said a bit condescendingly, "You look beautiful. You always do."

"Thanks," she said a bit sourly.

Still, she climbed quickly into the soft bed. I put my arms around her as she snuggled against my chest, but this was routine, and it was boring her almost to tears.

"Edward?" she said after a few minutes.

"Hm?"

"I decided I want to be human a little while longer."

I pushed back a little to look her in the eye. "What? First you're all about becoming a vampire ASAP, now suddenly you want to wait? Why?"

"Well, I have a reason to be human that I didn't have before."

"What's that?"

"Guess," she said, and dragged herself off the pillows to kiss me.

I kissed back, but not in an encouraging way. I gently pulled her away after a moment and cradled her against my chest.

"You are _so _human, Bella. Ruled by your hormones," I smirked.

"That's the whole point, Edward. I _like _this part of being human. I don't want to give it up yet. I don't want to wait through years of being a blood-crazed newborn for some part of this to come back to me."

She yawned.

"You're tired. Sleep, love." I started humming the lullaby I'd composed for her; the one she _still_ didn't know the lyrics to.

"I wonder why I'm so tired," she muttered sarcastically. "That couldn't be part of your scheme or anything." She sighed. "For as tired as I've been, you'd think I'd sleep better."

I stopped humming. "You've been sleeping like the dead, Bella. You haven't said a word in your sleep since we got here. If it weren't for the snoring, I'd worry you were slipping into a coma."

"I haven't been tossing? That's weird. Usually I'm all over the bed when I'm having dreams."

"You've been having dreams?"

"Vivid ones. They make me so tired." She yawned again. "I can't believe I haven't been babbling about them all night."

"What are they about?"

"They're not bad. So… colorful. Underwater, with the fish and the coral. It all seems like it's really happening-I don't know that I'm dreaming. Maybe this island is the problem. It's really _bright _here."

"Do you want to go home?"

"No. No, not yet. Can't we stay awhile longer?"

"We can stay as long as you want, Bella," I promised.

Later, she awoke in the dark with a shock. She had been having another erotic dream; so very real… so vivid, so sensory.… she gasped aloud, now, disoriented by the dark room. I didn't think she even realized she had her hand pressed between her legs while she was asleep.

"Bella?" I whispered, arms around her, shaking her gently. "Are you all right, sweetheart?"

"Oh," she murmured. _Just a dream. Not real, _she thought_. _To my utter astonishment, tears flowed from her eyes without warning, running down her cheeks.

"Bella!" I said-louder, alarmed now. _That's not normal, is it? _"What's wrong?" I wiped the tears from her cheeks, but others followed.

"It was only a dream." Her voice broke into a sob. I couldn't believe it. She was crying because she wanted so badly for the dream to be real. She was _crying_.

"It's okay, love, you're fine. I'm here," I said reassuringly. "Did you have a nightmare? It wasn't real, it wasn't real."

"Not a nightmare." She shook her head, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. "It was a _good _dream." Her voice broke again.

"Then why are you crying?" I asked, playing along.

"Because I woke up," she wailed, wrapping her arms around my neck in a choke hold and sobbing into my throat.

_Ladies and gentlemen, we have now crossed the threshold into crazy about sex. NOW we can let the fun begin!_

"Everything's all right, Bella. Take deep breaths."

"It was so real," she cried. "I _wanted _it to be real."

"Tell me about it," I said. "Maybe that will help."

"We were on the beach. . . ." she trailed off, pulling back to look with tear-filled eyes at my face in the darkness. She stared at me broodingly trying to think of how to say it.

"And?" I finally prompted.

She blinked tears out of her eyes, torn. "Oh, Edward . . ."

"Tell me, Bella," I prompted.

She didn't speak, instead clutching her arms around my neck again and locking her mouth with mine feverishly. It wasn't just desire-it was need, acute to the point of pain. She pulled back and looked entreatingly into my eyes. "Please," she begged, her voice a mere whisper in the dark. "Please, Edward?"

By now I was curious to see what she would do, just how bold she could be, after all those dreams and this period of abstinence. I pulled her back to me, nearly crushing her lips with my own.

Except for the initial opening, I let Bella take the lead this time. It's not that I was being magnanimous; I just thought if she went at her own pace, she would be less likely to go into shock and faint on me again. _Once_ was damaging enough to my ego. She was very slow, hesitant, and asked me about every five seconds if she was doing it right. I eventually discovered that the more she thought I was enjoying it, the more she cut loose and just enjoyed herself. Even later, she declared that the cowgirl position was fun, and she wanted to do it again. I was happy to oblige, of course.

* * *

"How much longer can we stay?" she asked as she ate breakfast the next morning.

"We're fine on time. A few more weeks, if you want. And then we can visit Charlie before we go to New Hampshire. We could spend Christmas with Renée. . . ."

"A few weeks," she agreed. And then she added hopefully, "So I was thinking-you know how they say practice makes perfect?"

I laughed. "Can you hold on to that thought? I hear a boat. The cleaning crew must be here. Let me explain the mess in the white room to Gustavo, and then we can go out. There's a place in the jungle on the south—"

"I don't want to go out. I am not hiking all over the island today. I want to stay here and watch a movie."

I pursed my lips, trying not to laugh at her disgruntled tone. "All right, whatever you'd like. Why don't you pick one out while I get the door?"

"I didn't hear a knock."

A second later, a faint, timid rap on the door sounded. I grinned and turned for the hallway. I met the two Brazilians, a man and woman, at the door, and led them to the feather-covered room, briefly introducing Bella as we passed the kitchen. The man just nodded at Bella and walked by. The woman stared, shocked and angry and fearful, when she saw Bella sitting there.

As I hurried them past the kitchen, she started talking furiously about how I could do what I wished here with others of my kind, but she would _not_ allow me to defile this young girl.

"Yeah?" I replied in Portuguese. "What are you going to do about it? Tell her? She only speaks English."

"I will find some way to tell her what kind of monster you are."

I leaned down so I was eye-to-eye with her. "I would strongly advise against that. Wouldn't want anything to happen to your daughter; or _her_ daughter, would you?"

Her eyes widened, then hardened. She turned away, and I knew I wouldn't have any trouble on that front.

I walked back to the kitchen alone and wrapped my arms around Bella.

"What's with her?" she asked.

"Kaure's part Ticuna Indian," I said flippantly. "She was raised to be more _superstitious_ than those who live in the modern world. She suspects what I am, or close enough. They have their own legends here. The _Libishomen_—a blood-drinking demon who preys exclusively on beautiful women." She blushed and smiled when I said that last bit-I knew appealing to her flattery would distract her.

We watched a movie while the housekeepers did their work. Bella dozed off about halfway through, but awoke when I returned from seeing them off.

"They're finished," I said.

"So that would mean that we're alone now?"

"How about lunch first?" I suggested.

She bit her lip, torn by the dilemma. She _was _pretty hungry, evidenced by her stomach growling.

"This is getting out of hand," she complained after finishing off her dinner that evening, indicating just how much she was eating lately.

"Do you want to swim with the dolphins this afternoon-burn off the calories?" I asked.

"Maybe later. I had another idea for burning calories."

"And what was that?"

"Well, there's an awful lot of beds left—"

But I didn't let her finish. I swept her up into my arms, and silenced her with a kiss as I carried her with inhuman speed to the blue room.

* * *

"No more, please, no more..." muttered my most recent "snack." We had been out there two weeks now, and it was definitely time for me to go hunting. I was able to procure some animal blood to quench my thirst and give my eyes the requisite golden hue, and now I was sating a _different_ kind of hunger. You would be amazed what whores will do for the right amount of..._persuasion_. She'd given me a good roll, and her blood wasn't that good-so I let this one go with nothing more than an average "donation."

* * *

I returned to Isle Esme to find Bella sick and nauseous. Soon after I arrived, I was holding her hair while she paid homage to the Porcelain God. The last thing she ate was...chicken? I'd thought she knew how to properly cook chicken by now.

"Damn rancid chicken," she moaned.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine," she panted. "It's just food poisoning. You don't need to see this. Go away."

"Not likely, Bella."

"Go away," she moaned again, struggling to get up to rinse her mouth out.

I helped her, ignoring the weak shoves she aimed at me. When she finished, I carried her to the bed and set her down carefully, supporting her with my arms.

"Food poisoning?" I murmured.

"Yeah," she croaked. "I made some chicken last night. It tasted off, so I threw it out. But I ate a few bites first."

I put my hand on her forehead. "How do you feel now?"

She thought a moment. "Pretty normal. A little hungry, actually."

I made her wait an hour and keep down a big glass of water before I fried some eggs. I felt perfectly normal, just a little tired from being up in the middle of the night. I turned on the TV to a random channel-it turned out to be CNN-and went to cuddle Bella. Not ten minutes in another attack hit, she covered her mouth, and raced to the kitchen sink (the bathroom was too far away).

I held her hair again.

"Maybe we should go back to Rio, see a doctor," I suggested.

She shook her head and edged toward the hallway. She didn't want to go because she was terrified of needles? _Ok, well, we'll just wait until you collapse from dehydration, then?_ "I'll be fine right after I brush my teeth." _Yeah, because _that's_ an old folk remedy to treat nausea. _

She ran to the first aid kit Alice had packed to look for some antacids or Pepto or something. She found something else instead. When I met her in the bedroom, she held a pregnancy test kit in her hands. She looked up at me, a little bit stunned. "My period is late; and Alice packed me a pregnancy test...I don't think I have food poisoning."

Suddenly, she dropped her hand to her stomach. "Oh!" she squeaked. She lurched to her feet, yanked the blue fabric of her camisole out of the way and stared at her stomach. "Impossible," she whispered.

A small but defined bump was sticking out between her hips. She twisted back and forth, examining it from every angle, as if it would disappear in exactly the right light. She ran her fingers over the subtle bulge, apparently surprised by it felt.

"Impossible," she said again, and I silently echoed her sentiment. Because, bulge or no bulge, period or no period, there was no way she could be pregnant. The only person she'd ever had sex with was me, for crying out loud; I could read her mind; I knew.

And then I remembered something-a scavenger hunt with Jasper into Carlisle's secret lab. A shelf lined with jars, each with increasingly larger fetuses inside them. Several specimens had skin with a silvery sheen. They weren't human.

_Ring! Ring! Ring! _My phone suddenly went off. I gave myself three guesses to who it was, and decided that the first two didn't count, I was that sure of who was on the line.

"Edward!" Alice chirped. "How are you two, way out there in your little love nest?"

"Oh, we're just fine, Alice, I'm fine, Bella's fine, everybody's fine. Say, could you put Carlisle on the phone for me?" I gave Bella a reassuring look before leaving the room; I didn't want her to hear the exchange to follow.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Carlisle."

"Edward! Great to hear from you. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Carlisle?"

"Yes, Edward?"

"What. The. FUCK?"

* * *

**You know by now that I don't shy away from fairly heavy sex (there was that chapter in New Moon...) and I really did want to actually write out how they might have sex, but there's not enough to Bella to give me how she would act/react, and she was never MY self-insert; I've never wanted sex with Edward, so all I could do was write vague general statements about the atmosphere. Sorry to all those who were anticipating it. Still more than Smeyer provided, though.**


	5. Birth Control

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, everyone! It's been a tough couple of weeks for me, and after all that waiting, it's a short chapter. I like to do at least two if I can, but after this, it's Jacob's perspective, so I kind of had to stop here. Don't forget to tell me your favorite quotes, and I looove reviews, even if you criticize. Happy reading!**

* * *

"Well, now, that's a pretty loaded question, Edward," Carlisle said over the phone, much too calmly for my current state of mind. "There are a number of things you could be asking about, but I'm a doctor, not a mind reader, and I must admit ignorance about which one you are referring to now."

"I think you know exactly...wait, a _number_ of things? How many-?"

"The sooner you tell me what you're talking about," he interrupted, "the sooner I can tell you what you want to know." I swear, that bastard always knew exactly what to say to make me feel like an angry, petulant teenager all over again.

I took a deep breath and let it out quickly, fuming. "Why didn't you tell me vampires could knock up human girls?"

"Well, for one thing, you didn't ask."

"Why would you think such a question would even occur to me?" I asked through clenched teeth.

"Honestly? I thought you had figured it out already. I mean, you told me you had been in my lab. All the jars showing fetal growth and development were-still are-on prominent display. What else could the silver-skinned ones have been, except baby vampires?"

"I just-_we all_ just assumed that-"

"Well, now, see, that just proves why you shouldn't assume anything; you make an ass out of you and yourself." I growled at that, but before I could make a biting retort, he went on. "Now, to be clear, are you _sure_ she's pregnant?"

"Either that or an alien will burst out of her stomach in a very short time."

"Edward, now is not the best time for sarcasm," he chided me. Then he got serious. "I want you to bring her back here."

"What? Why? So you can perform another one of your sick experiments-"

"Listen to me!" he cut in. "I freely admit this is an amazing opportunity for a scientist such as myself, but I also want her here to monitor her progress_ for Bella's own health and safety_."

He was serious; that stopped me cold. "What do you mean?"

He sighed impatiently. "Did you notice that among all my vampire fetus specimens, there was not a fully developed one in the bunch?"

I thought for a moment. "Meaning...?"

"Meaning _I could never find one that was carried to full term. _For some reason, in every instance, the fetus expired, and usually the mother along with it, depending on how far along it was. However, none made it past the second trimester, or rather the developmental equivalent."

I walked back to the room where was still examining herself. "And Bella?" I reached out and pulled her close to me.

"You must bring her back here immediately, and if you want her to live, we will probably have to abort it; the sooner the better. Either way, we'll have to "quarantine" her, because everyone knows a pregnancy going at this rate is unnatural at best. So. Will you do that, Edward?"

"Yes. Yes, I will." He hung up, and I immediately began dialing the nearest airport that offered international flights.

"What did Carlisle say?" Bella asked impatiently.

"He thinks you're pregnant," I answered flatly.

"Who are you calling now?" she asked as I put the phone back to my ear.

"The airport. We're going home."

I packed while I talked, and eventually Bella left the room, overwhelmed by my apparently sudden surge of energy. I finally got all the details hammered out, and searched out Bella again. When I found her, she was crying. _Oh no! _Had the fetus-rejection already started?

"Bella!" I hurried across the room and put my hands on her face. "Are you in pain?"

"No, no—"

I pulled her against my chest. "Don't be afraid. We'll be home in sixteen hours. You'll be fine. Carlisle will be ready when we get there. We'll take care of this, and you'll be fine, you'll be fine."

"Take care of this? What do you mean?"

I leaned away and looked her in the eye. "We're going to get that thing out before it can hurt any part of you. Don't be scared. I won't let it hurt you."

"That _thing_?" she gasped. She wanted to protest, to tell me she wanted this baby. I gathered my thoughts to dissuade that line of thinking-

I heard a sound outside. I turned and looked toward the front door. "Dammit! I forgot Gustavo was due today. I'll get rid of him and be right back." I darted out of the room.

Gustavo had brought Kaure here at her own insistence, on the pretext of bringing us dinner. I tried to tell them that their assistance wasn't needed, that we were leaving anyway, but she was adamant that Bella should eat what she had brought. I knew how stubborn she could be, so finally I just let her come in; I would just have to push them out as quickly as I could.

I went into the kitchen ahead of her and went straight to Bella. "She's insisting on leaving the food she brought-she made us dinner." I almost rolled my eyes at the absurdity of all this. "It's an excuse-she wants to make sure I haven't killed you yet."

Kaure gave Bella a thorough once-over, checking the color in her cheeks, her skin, and looking very intently into her eyes. I finally got tired of it.

"All right, you've brought dinner, thank-you-very-much-now-you-can-leave," I said in Portuguese.

Suddenly the smell of the strongly-spiced dinner Kaure had brought caused Bella to be ill again, and she raced to the sink, retching.

I moved quickly to put the food in the refrigerator so it wouldn't bother her anymore, and stood by her while she rinsed her mouth. When she was finished, I turned her around, pulling her into my arms. She rested her head on my shoulder, and her hands, instinctively I think, folded over her stomach.

I heard a little gasp and we both looked up.

Kaure was still there. She had seen Bella's "baby bump" quite clearly, and she knew now what was going on. She began screaming at me in Portuguese. "You monster! You have destroyed this girl! Do you have any idea what will happen now? It will tear her body apart, that thing inside her. It will eat her soul, _and_ her body, and there will be nothing left, you will see!"

"You would do best to keep your nose out of things that aren't any of your business, Miss Kaure, and leave this to us. We know what this is, and we know what we're doing; no one is going to die because of this, believe me."

"You say that, but I won't believe that you really know. I see nothing but death in that girl's future." She walked slowly forward until she was close enough to lay her small hand on top of Bella's, over her stomach. "Death," she sighed quietly. Then she turned, her shoulders bent as if the conversation had aged her, and left the room.

I didn't move until Bella started for the bathroom. I caught her shoulder. "Where are you going?"

"To brush my teeth again."

I tried to give her some reassurance. I was so close to my goal, but now things seemed to be crashing down around me. "Don't worry about what she said. It's nothing but legends, old lies for the sake of entertainment."

"I didn't understand anything," she said, and I knew it wasn't entirely true. She was thinking of all the other "legends" she'd heard lately, and she _did_ know the Spanish word for "death."

"I packed your toothbrush. I'll get it for you." I walked ahead of her to the bedroom.

"Are we leaving soon?" she called after me.

"As soon as you're done."

I waited for her to finish brushing her teeth so I could repack her toothbrush, pacing silently around the bedroom. I was anxious to leave.

"I'll get the bags into the boat."

"Edward—"

I turned back. "Yes?"

She hesitated, then said, "Could you…pack some of the food? You know, in case I get hungry again."

"Of course," I replied. "Don't worry about anything. We'll get to Carlisle in just a few hours, really. This will all be over soon."

She nodded.

I turned and left the room, one big suitcase in each hand.

She whirled and scooped up the phone I'd left on the counter. She flipped it open and scrolled through the pre-programmed numbers until she found the one she was looking for. Why was she calling-? _Oh, boy._ She pressed "send."

"Hello?" the voice like golden wind chimes answered.

"Rosalie? It's Bella. Please. You have to help me."

_And the good times just keep coming. I'm no Alice, but I predict this will not go as easily as Carlisle wants it to. Or me, for that matter..._

_

* * *

_

**And with that...two internets to anyone who caught the Star Trek reference the first time through! One if you catch it on the second read-through.**

**Next up, we begin with Jacob! Woooooo!**


	6. Preparation

**A/N: If this seems awfully familiar to any of you, it's because it was taken almost as a giant copy-pasta from the original text. This is just a cleaned-up, smoother, less squicky, edited, non-Bella-sounding version. Mostly because this was in the text, and it seems relevant. I think I got in some "genuine Jacob," so this should be a more interesting read.**

**

* * *

**

"Jeez, Paul, don't you have a freaking home of your own?"

Paul, lounging across the whole couch-_my _whole couch, watching some stupid baseball game on _my _crappy TV, just grinned at me and then-slowly and deliberately-he lifted one Dorito from the bag in his lap and wedged it into his mouth in one piece.

"You better've brought those with you."

Crunch. "Nope," he said while chewing. "Your _sister_ said to go ahead and help myself to anything I wanted."

I tried to sound nonchalant. "Is Rachel here now?"

It didn't work. He heard where I was going and shoved the bag behind his back. The bag crackled as he smashed it into the cushion. The chips crunched into pieces. Paul's hands came up in fists, close to his face like a boxer.

"Bring it, kid. I don't need Rachel to protect me."

I snorted. "Right. Like you wouldn't go crying to her first chance."

He laughed and relaxed into the sofa, dropping his hands. "I'm not going to go tattle to a girl. If you got in a lucky hit, that would be just between the two of us; and vice versa, right?"

Nice of him to give me an invitation. I made my body slump like I'd given up. "Right." His eyes shifted to the TV. I lunged. His nose made a very satisfying crunching sound of its own when my fist connected. He tried to grab me, but I danced out of the way before he could find a hold, the ruined bag of Doritos in my left hand.

"You broke my nose, idiot!"

"Just between us, right, Paul?" I taunted as I went to put the chips away. When I turned around, Paul was repositioning his nose before it could set crooked. The blood had already stopped; it looked like it had no source as it trickled down his lips and off his chin. He cussed, wincing as he popped the cartilage back in place.

"You are such a pain, Jacob. I swear, I'd rather hang out with Leah."

I mock-winced. "Ouch. Wow, I bet Leah's really going to love to hear that you want to spend some quality time with her. It'll just warm the bottom of her heart."

"Pff! Like you'd really tell her."

"Of course. I'm sure it won't slip out."

"Ugh," he grunted, and then settled back into the couch, wiping the leftover blood on the collar of his t-shirt. "You're fast, kid. I'll give you that." He turned his attention back to the game.

I stood there for a second, and then I stalked off to my room, muttering about alien abductions. Honestly, it felt like I didn't know the guy anymore. Back in the day, you could count on Paul for a fight pretty much whenever. You didn't have to hit him then-any mild insult would do. It didn't take a lot to flip him out of control. Now, of course, when I really _wanted _a good snarling, ripping, break-the-trees-down match, he had to be all mellow. Wasn't it bad enough that yet another member of the pack had imprinted-because, really, that made four of ten now! When would it stop? Stupid myth was supposed to be _rare, _for crying out loud! All this mandatory love-at-first-sight was completely sickening! Did it have to be my _sister_? Did it have to be _Paul_?

When Rachel had come home from Washington State at the end of the summer semester-graduated early, the nerd-my biggest worry had been that it would be hard keeping the secret around her. I wasn't used to covering things up in my own home. It made me real sympathetic to kids like Embry and Collin, whose parents didn't know they were werewolves. Embry's mom thought he was going through some kind of rebellious stage. He was permanently grounded for constantly sneaking out, but, of course, there wasn't much he could do about that. She'd check his room every night, and every night it would be empty again. She'd yell and he'd take it in silence, and then go through it all again the next day. We'd tried to talk Sam into giving Embry a break and letting his mom in on the gig, but Embry said he didn't mind. The secret was too important. So I'd been all geared up to be keeping that secret.

Then, two days after Rachel got home, Paul ran into her on the beach. Bada bing, bada boom-true love! Or at least, instant chemistry. No secrets necessary when you found your other half, and all that imprinting werewolf garbage.

Rachel got the whole story. And I got Paul as a brother-in-law someday. That whole business scared me; terrified me, really. Paul, for example, had totally mellowed out. His personality had completely changed. If that happened to me, would I still be Jacob Black? Would I still be...me? I knew Dad wasn't much thrilled about it, either, but he handled it better than I did. 'Course, he _did_ escape to the Clearwaters' more often than usual these days. I didn't see where that was so much better. No Paul, but plenty of Leah. I didn't know why we all came down so hard on Leah all the time. Maybe it was because she was intruding on our little boys' club, or perhaps (in my case) it was because she reminded me of my own situation, and how much it hurt; or maybe because she reminded everyone of the hurt caused by Sam's imprinting of Emily. I never thought about it much, being a little bit scared of the implications of each explanation. All I knew for sure was, she irritated all the wolves, except for Seth, and each had their own reasons why; it seemed like most were similar to my own, though.

I threw myself down on the bed. I was tired-hadn't slept since my last patrol-but I knew I wasn't going to sleep. My head was too crazy. The thoughts bounced around inside my skull like a disoriented swarm of bees. Noisy. Now and then they stung. Vicious little things. Bees died after one sting, but the same thoughts were stinging me again and again.

This waiting was driving me insane. It had been almost four weeks. I'd expected, one way or another, the news would have come by now. I'd sat up nights imagining what form it would take.

Charlie sobbing on the phone-Bella and her husband lost in an accident. A plane crash? That would be hard to fake. Unless the leeches didn't mind killing a bunch of bystanders to authenticate it, and why would they? Maybe a small plane instead. They probably had one of _those_ to spare.

Or would the murderer come home alone, unsuccessful in his attempt to make her one of them? Or not even getting that far. Maybe he'd smashed her like a bag of chips in his drive to get some?-I shuddered at the unbidden thought-because her life was less important to him than his own pleasure…

The story would be so tragic-Bella lost in a horrible accident. Victim of a mugging gone wrong. Choking to death at dinner. A car accident, like my m-... So common. Happened all the time. Would he bring her home? Bury her here for Charlie? Closed-casket ceremony, of course. My mom's coffin had been nailed shut.…

I could only hope that he'd come back here, within my reach. Maybe there would be no story at all. Maybe Charlie would call to ask my dad if he'd heard anything from Dr. Cullen, who just didn't show up to work one day. The house abandoned. No answer on any of the Cullens' phones. The mystery picked up by some second-rate news program, foul play suspected…

Maybe the big white house would burn to the ground, everyone trapped inside. Of course, they'd need bodies for that one. Eight humans of roughly the right size. Burned beyond recognition-beyond the help of dental records.

Either of those would be tricky-for me, that is. It would be hard to find them if they didn't want to be found. Of course, I had forever to look. When you had forever, you could check out every single piece of straw in the haystack, one by one, to see if it was the needle. Right now, I wouldn't mind dismantling a haystack. At least that would be something to _do. _I hated knowing that I could be losing my chance; giving the bloodsuckers the time to escape, if that was their plan.

We could go tonight. We could kill every one of them that we could find. I liked that plan because I knew Edward well enough to know that, if I killed any one of his coven, I would get my chance at him, too. He'd come for revenge. And I'd give it to him-I wouldn't let my brothers take him down as a pack. It would be just him and me. May the better man win.

But Sam wouldn't hear of it. _We're not going to break the treaty. Let them make the breach. _Just because we had no proof that the Cullens had done anything wrong. Yet. We had to add the 'yet,' because we all knew it was inevitable. Bella was either coming back one of them, or not coming back at all. Either way, a human life had been lost. And that meant game on.

In the other room, Paul laughed. Maybe he'd switched to a comedy. Maybe the commercial was funny. Whatever. It grated on my nerves. I thought about breaking his nose again. But it wasn't Paul I wanted to fight with. Not really.

I tried to listen to other sounds, the wind in the trees. It wasn't the same, not through human ears. There were a million voices in the wind that I couldn't hear in this body. But these ears were sensitive enough. I could hear past the trees, to the road, the sounds of the cars coming around that last bend where you could finally see the beach-the vista of the islands and the rocks and the big blue ocean stretching to the horizon. The La Push cops liked to hang out right around there. Tourists never noticed the reduced speed limit sign on the other side of the road.

I could hear the voices outside the souvenir shop on the beach. I could hear the cowbell clanging as the door opened and closed. I could hear Embry's mom at the cash register, printing out a receipt. I could hear the tide raking across the beach rocks. I could hear the kids squeal as the icy water rushed in too fast for them to get out of the way. I could hear the moms complain about the wet clothes. And I could hear a familiar voice.…I was listening so hard that the sudden burst of Paul's irritating laugh made me jump half off the bed.

"Get out of my house," I grumbled. Knowing he wouldn't pay any attention, I followed my own advice. I wrenched open my window and climbed out the back way so that I wouldn't see Paul again. It would be too tempting. I knew I would hit him again, and Rachel was going to be pissed enough already. She'd see the blood on his shirt, and she'd blame me right away without waiting for proof. _Of course, she'd be right, but still..._

I paced down to the shore, my fists in my pockets. Nobody looked at me twice when I went through the dirt lot by First Beach. That was one nice thing about summer-no one cared if you wore nothing but shorts.

I followed the familiar voice I'd heard and found Quil easily enough. He was on the south end of the crescent, avoiding the bigger part of the tourist crowd. He kept up a constant stream of warnings.

"Keep out of the water, Claire. C'mon. No, don't. Oh! _Nice_, kid. Seriously, do you want Emily to yell at me? I'm not bringing you back to the beach again if you don't-Oh yeah? Don't-ugh. You think that's funny, do you? Hah! Who's laughing now, huh?"

He had the giggling toddler by the ankle when I reached them. She had a bucket in one hand, and her jeans were drenched. He had a huge wet mark down the front of his t-shirt.

I watched them, rolling my eyes. It was hard being around imprinted people. No matter what stage they were in-about to tie the knot like Sam or just a much-abused nanny like Quil-the peace and certainty they always radiated was downright puke-inducing.

The weird part was, Quil was having just as much fun as she was. He didn't have that face on that so many of the tourist dads and moms were wearing-the when-is-nap-time? face. You never saw a real parent so jazzed to play whatever stupid kiddie sport their rugrat could think up. I'd seen Quil play peekaboo for an hour straight without getting bored.

And I couldn't even make fun of him for it-I envied him too much. And even while I thought that, it made me a little sick. There seemed to be something..._wrong_ about this, this whole imprinting business. I mean, a _two_ year old? But I guess I envied him because in his mind, the decision was made; there was no question who his "life-mate" would be, so to speak. I guess I envied that bit, the whole "decision-already-made" deal. I kind of wondered sometimes if that mysterious force would be better than me at making decisions for my life; after all, I'd made all my decisions so far, and royally screwed up, well, everything. Even so, it was all kind of eerie...

"Quil, you ever think about dating?" I asked.

"Huh?"

"You know. A real girl. I mean, just for now, right? On your nights off babysitting duty."

Quil stared at me, his mouth hanging open.

"Pity wock! Pity wock!" Claire screamed when he didn't offer her another choice. She smacked him on the head with her little fist.

"Sorry, Claire-bear. How about this pretty purple one?"

"No," she giggled. "No poopoh."

"Give me a clue. I'm begging, kid."

Claire thought it over. "Gween," she finally said.

Quil stared at the rocks, studying them. He picked four rocks in different shades of green, and offered them to her.

"Which one?"

"_Aaaaawl _ob dem!" She cupped her hands and he poured the small rocks into them. She laughed and immediately clunked him on the head with them. He winced and then got to his feet and started walking back up toward the parking lot. Probably worried about her getting cold in her wet clothes. He was worse than any paranoid, overprotective mother.

Definitely. Eerie.

Far away, too low for anyone but just us two to hear it over the waves, a howl rose out of the forest.

"Dang, that's Sam," Quil said. His hands flew up to touch Claire, as if making sure she was still there. "I don't know where her mom's at!"

"I'll see what it is. If we need you, I'll let you know." I raced through my speech. It came out all slurred together. "Hey, why don't you take her up to the Clearwaters'? Sue and Billy can keep an eye on her if they need to. They might know what's going on, anyway."

"Okay-get outta here, Jake!"

I took off running, not for the dirt path through the weedy hedge, but in the shortest line toward the forest. I hurdled the first line of driftwood and then ripped my way through the briars, still running. I felt the little tears as the thorns cut into my skin, but I ignored them. Their sting would be healed before I made the trees.

I cut behind the store and darted across the highway. Once in the safety of the trees, I ran faster, taking longer strides. People would stare if I was out in the open. Normal people couldn't run like this. Sometimes I thought it might be fun to enter a race-you know, like the Olympic trials or something. It would be cool to watch the expressions on those star athletes' faces when I blew by them. Only I was pretty sure the testing they did to make sure you weren't on steroids would probably find some really freaky stuff in my blood.

As soon as I was in the true forest, unbound by roads or houses, I skidded to a stop and kicked my shorts off. With quick, practiced moves, I rolled them up and tied them to the leather cord around my ankle. As I was still pulling the ends tight, I started shifting. The fire trembled down my spine, throwing tight spasms out along my arms and legs. It only took a second. The heat flooded through me, and I felt the silent shimmer that made me something else. I threw my heavy paws against the matted earth and stretched my back in one long, rolling extension.

Phasing was very easy when I was centered like this. I didn't have issues with my temper anymore...except when it got in the way.

_Doesn't that mean you still _do_ have issues with your temper?_

_Shut up, brain!_

For a brief moment, I remembered the awful moment at that unspeakable joke of a wedding. I'd been so insane with fury that I couldn't make my body work right. I'd been trapped, shaking and burning, unable to make the change and kill the monster just a few feet away from me. It had been so confusing. Dying to kill him, afraid to hurt her. My friends in the way. Then, when I was finally able to take the form I wanted, the order from my leader. The edict from the Alpha. If it had been just Embry and Quil there that night without Sam…would I have been able to kill the murderer, then?

I hated it when Sam laid down the law like that. I hated the feeling of having no choice. Of having to obey. _Hrm. Imprinting, again? Bah, focus, Jacob..._

Just then I was conscious of an audience. I was not alone in my thoughts.

_So self-absorbed all the time, _Leah thought.

_Yeah, no hypocrisy there, Leah, _I thought back.

_Can it, guys, _Sam told us.

We fell silent, and I felt Leah's eye-roll at the word _guys_. Touchy, like always. Sam pretended not to notice her attitude. _Where's Quil and Jared?_

_Quil's got Claire. He's taking her to the Clearwaters'._

_Good. Sue will take her._

_Jared was going to Kim's, _Embry thought. _Good chance he didn't hear you._

There was a low grumble through the pack. I groaned along with them. When Jared finally showed up, no doubt he'd still be thinking about Kim, and _nobody_ wanted a replay of what they were up to right now.

Sam sat back on his haunches and let another howl rip into the air. It was a signal and an order in one. The pack was gathered a few miles east of where I was. I loped through the thick forest toward them. Leah, Embry, and Paul all were working in toward them, too. Leah was close-soon I could hear her footfalls not far into the woods. We continued parallel to each other, choosing not to run together.

_Well, we're not waiting all day for him. He'll just have to catch up later._

'_Sup, boss? _Paul wanted to know.

_We need to talk. Something's happened._

I felt Sam's thoughts flicker to me-and not just Sam's, but Seth's and Collin's and Brady's as well. Collin and Brady-the new kids-had been running patrol with Sam today, so they would know whatever he knew. I didn't know why Seth was already out here, and in the know. It wasn't his turn.

_Seth, tell them what you heard._

I sped up, wanting to be there. I heard Leah move faster, too. She hated being outrun. Being the fastest was the only edge she claimed.

_Claim _this_, moron, _she hissed, and then she really kicked it into gear. I dug my nails into the loam and shot myself forward.

Sam didn't seem in the mood to put up with our usual crap. _Jake, Leah, give it a rest._

Neither of us slowed.

Sam growled, but let it go. _Seth?_

_Charlie called around till he found Billy at my house._

_Yeah, I talked to him, _Paul added.

I felt a jolt go through me as Seth thought Charlie's name. This was it. The waiting was over. I ran faster, forcing myself to breathe, though my lungs felt kinda stiff all of a sudden. Which story would it be?

_So he's all flipped out. Guess Edward and Bella got home last week, and…_

My chest eased up. She was alive. Or she wasn't _dead _dead, at least. I hadn't realized how much difference it would make to me. I'd been thinking of her as dead this whole time, and I only saw that now. I saw that I'd never believed that he would bring her back alive. It shouldn't matter, because I knew what was coming next.

_Yeah, bro, and here's the bad news, _Seth continued._ Charlie talked to her, said she sounded bad. She told him she's sick. Carlisle got on and told Charlie that Bella picked up some rare disease in South America. Said she's quarantined. Charlie's going crazy, 'cause even he's not allowed to see her. He says he doesn't care if he gets sick, but Carlisle wouldn't bend. No visitors. Told Charlie it was pretty serious, but that he's doing everything he can. Charlie's been stewing about it for days, but he only called Billy now. He said she sounded worse today._

The mental silence when Seth finished was profound. We all understood. She would die of this disease, as far as Charlie knew. Would they let him view the corpse? The pale, perfectly still, unbreathing white body? They couldn't let him touch the cold skin-he might notice how hard it was. They'd have to wait until she could hold still, could keep from killing Charlie and the other mourners.

How long would that take? Would they bury her? Would she dig herself out, or would the bloodsuckers come for her?

The others listened to my speculating in silence. I'd put a lot more thought into this than any of them.

Leah and I entered the clearing at nearly the same time. She was sure her nose led the way, though. She dropped onto her haunches beside her brother while I trotted forward to stand at Sam's right hand. Paul circled and made room for me in my place.

_Beatcha again, _Leah thought, but I barely heard her.

I wondered why I was the only one on my feet. My fur stood up on my shoulders, bristling with impatience. _Well, what are we waiting for? _I asked.

No one said anything, but I heard their feelings of hesitation.

_Oh, come on! The treaty's broken!_

_We have no proof—maybe she _is _sick.…_

_OH, PLEASE!_

_Okay, so the circumstantial evidence is pretty strong. Still… Jacob. _Sam's thought came slow, hesitant. _Are you sure this is what you want? Is it really the right thing? We all know what she wanted._

_The treaty doesn't mention anything about victim preferences, Sam!_

_Is she really a victim? Would you label her that way?_

_Yes!_

_Jake, _Seth thought, _they aren't our enemies._

_Shut up, kid! Just 'cause you've got some kind of sick hero worship thing going on with that bloodsucker, it doesn't change the law. They are our enemies. They are in _our_ territory. We take them out. I don't care if you had fun fighting alongside Edward Cullen once upon a time._

_So what are you going to do when Bella fights with them, Jacob? Huh? _Seth demanded.

_She's not Bella anymore._

_You gonna be the one to take her down?_

I couldn't stop myself from wincing.

_No, you're not. So, what? You gonna make one of us do it? And then hold a grudge against whoever it is forever?_

_I wouldn't…_

_Sure you won't. You're not ready for this fight, Jacob._

I always hate when people point out when I'm being illogical. I got angry, instinct took over and I crouched forward, snarling at the gangly sand-colored wolf across the circle.

_Jacob! _Sam cautioned. _Seth, shut up for a second._

Seth nodded his big head.

_Dang, what'd I miss? _Quil thought. He was running for the gathering place full-out. _Heard about Charlie's call.…_

_We're getting ready to go, _I told him. _Why don't you swing by Kim's and drag Jared out with your teeth if you have to? We're going to need everyone._

_Come straight here, Quil, _Sam ordered. _We've decided nothing yet._

I growled.

_Jacob, I have to think about what's best for this pack. I have to choose the course that protects you all best. Times have changed since our ancestors made that treaty. I… well, I don't honestly believe that the Cullens are a danger to us. And we know that they will not be here much longer. Surely once they've told their story, they will disappear. Our lives can return to normal._

_Normal?_

_If we challenge them, Jacob, they will defend themselves well._

_Are you afraid?_

_Are you so ready to lose a brother? _He paused. _Or a sister? _

_I'm not afraid to die._

_I know that, Jacob. It's one reason I question your judgment on this._

I stared into his black eyes. _Do you intend to honor our fathers' treaty or not?_

_I honor my pack. I do what's best for them._

_Coward._

His lips pulled back over his teeth into a snarl.

_Enough, Jacob. You're overruled. _Sam's mental voice changed, took on that strange double timbre that we could not disobey. The voice of the Alpha. He met the gaze of every wolf in the circle. **_The pack is not attacking the Cullens without provocation. The spirit of the treaty remains. They are not a __danger to our people, nor are they a danger to the people of Forks. Bella Swan made an informed choice, and we are not going to punish our former allies for her choice._**

_Hear, hear, _Seth thought enthusiastically.

_I thought I told you to shut it, Seth._

_Oops. Sorry._

_Jacob, where do you think you're going? _ I had left the circle, moving toward the west and turning my back on him.

_I'm going to tell my father goodbye. Apparently there was no purpose in me sticking around this long._

_Aw, Jake-don't do that again!_

_Shut up, Seth! _several voices thought together.

_We don't want you to leave, _Sam told me, his thought softer than before.

_So force me to stay, Sam. Take away my will. Make me a slave._

_You know I won't do that._

_Then there's nothing more to say._

I ran away from them, trying very hard not to think about what was next. Instead, I concentrated on my memories of the long wolf months, of letting the humanity bleed out of me until I was more animal than man. Living in the moment, eating when hungry, sleeping when tired, drinking when thirsty, and running-running just to run. Simple desires, simple answers to those desires. Pain came in easily managed forms. The pain of hunger. The pain of cold ice under your paws. The pain of cutting claws when dinner got feisty. Each pain had a simple answer, a clear action to end that pain.

Unlike being human.

Yet, as soon as I was in jogging distance of my house, I shifted back into my human body. I needed to be able to think in privacy. I untied my shorts and yanked them on, already running for the house. I'd done it. I'd hidden what I was thinking and now it was too late for Sam to stop me. He couldn't hear me now.

Sam had made a very clear ruling. The pack would not attack the Cullens. Okay.

He hadn't mentioned an individual acting alone.

Nope, the pack wasn't attacking anyone today.

However, _I_ was.


	7. Confrontation

**A/N: Okay, so last chapter was an experiment to see if I could get into the mind of Jacob. It didn't work too well. Quite frankly, Smeyer's characters just aren't different enough to get a "feel" for them, if you know what I mean. They're all teenage girls. Yes, even the guys-teenage girls. As a result, this chapter is back to Edward's POV. Happy reading!**

* * *

"He's coming to kill you, you know," Alice said, smiling her cute little smile.

"What? Who?" I had just come out of Bella's room, temporarily relieved of "Bella watch," and I wasn't in the mood for mind games or riddles.

"Who do you think? That wolf boy pining over Bella. I guess he heard that we were back, and with the whole..._situation_ surrounding Bella...well, it didn't take him long to put two and two together and come up with a very convincing four."

I sighed. "Well, we knew it would happen sometime. Has anyone come up with a way for how to deal with it?"

"Carlisle has a sort of 'last resort' ready to spring on you, 'if he's too incompetent to take care of it himself' he said."

I rolled my eyes. "Lovely. So in other words, unless I royally screw up, it's all on me."

"Mm-hm. And we're all supposed to act appropriately solemn and serious. He said to imagine the last crack whore you encountered, and try to emulate that. The whole 'hopeless' aspect. And be solemn. Seriously solemn. Solemnly serious, seriously solemn..." she sang her new little song as she went skipping up the stairs.

_Now what? _I didn't know what I should say or do to waylay the coming battle that I knew Jacob wanted, and I wasn't very good at winging it all the time. Hmm, how to confuse him...? I would just have to redirect his attention to a slightly different topic.

Luckily, I didn't have much time to worry about it. Before long I sensed a familiar mental presence. Then I heard the distinctive sound of a motorcycle coming up the driveway. He was all alone, and itching for a fight, certain that Sam wouldn't come this far to stop him. He slowed down, taking the twists through the trees more carefully than necessary. He knew we would hear him coming, bike or no bike, so surprise was out. There was no way to disguise his intentions, so he didn't. He knew I would hear his plan as soon as he was close enough. Which was now. He actually thought he'd just walk in, see Sam's precious "evidence" for himself, and then challenge me to a duel!

He was going on an ego trip coming up the drive, imagining how he would slaughter me and take on the rest of the family, how we would of course kill him, and how that would affect the treaty. He didn't have high hopes for life, poor guy.

The drive opened up into the meadow, and the smell hit him like a rotten tomato to the face. I could sense that his stomach started churning. Tee-hee. Just wait until he encountered what I had in store for him.

There was no sign of life around our house. Of course we knew he was here. And he knew we knew. And we knew he knew we knew. We were all just a bunch of know-ers today. He cut the engine and listened to the quiet. We began speaking in tense murmurs from just the other side of the wide double doors, indicating that someone was home. I tersely said his name, making sure he would hear it. That made him smile. He liked the idea that he might be causing us a little stress. He took one big gulp of outside air and leaped up the porch stairs in one bound.

Carlisle opened the door before Jacob could touch it, and stood in the frame, his eyes grave.

"Hello, Jacob," he said calmly. "How are you?"

He took a deep breath through his mouth. The smell pouring through our door was overpowering for him. He was disappointed that it was Carlisle who answered. He'd rather _I_ had come through the door, fangs out and just as ready for a fight as he was. Carlisle was so…_human, _or something. Remembering all the house calls Carlisle had made to his place, it made Jacob uncomfortable to look into his face and plan to kill Carlisle if he could.

"I heard Bella made it back alive," he said.

"Er, Jacob, it's not really the best time." The doctor put on his best "uncomfortable" face. "Could we do this later?"

Jacob stared at him, dumbfounded. _Was he asking to post-pone the death match for a more convenient time? _He thought. Then Bella spoke up, her voice cracked and rough, and he forgot about anything else for a moment.

"Why not?" she asked Jasper. "Are we keeping secrets from Jacob, too? What's the point?"

Her voice was not what he was expecting. Jacob kept trying to hear the voice of a newborn vampire; he was still positive that she had already been turned, and that her "illness" was just a story to hide it. He was half right.

"Come in, please, Jacob," Bella croaked more loudly.

Carlisle narrowed his eyes.

"Excuse me," Jacob said as he stepped around Carlisle. It was hard for him; it went against all his instincts to turn his back to one of us. I gave him silent props for that.

He sidestepped into the house, keeping his back to the wall. His eyes swept the room. The last time he was in here it had been all done up for a party. Everything was bright and pale now, including the six of us standing in a group by the white sofa.

Then he turned his eyes on me. And the expression on my face. He'd seen me angry, and arrogant, and even once in pain. But this-if I'd gotten it right-this was beyond that. My eyes were half-crazed. I didn't look up at him. I stared down at the couch beside me with an expression of intense anguish. I kept my hands rigid at my sides. He could only think of one thing that would make me look like that, assuming I felt the same way he did about her, and his eyes followed my gaze.

He saw her at the same moment that he caught her scent. Her warm, clean, human scent, thereby confirming that she was still human, and at present there was no need for any conflict between us. Bella was half-hidden behind the arm of the sofa, curled up in a loose fetal position, her arms wrapped around her knees. For a long second he just stared at her, still the Bella that he loved, her skin still a soft, pale peach, her eyes still the same chocolate brown. His heart rate altered, a strange, broken meter, and he idly wondered if this was just some dream that he was about to wake up from.

Then he took a really good look at her. There were deep circles under her eyes, dark circles that jumped out because her face was all haggard. Her skin seemed tight, like her cheekbones might break right through it-she was definitely thinner. Most of her dark hair was pulled away from her face into a messy knot, but a few strands stuck limply to her forehead and neck, to the sheen of sweat that covered her skin. Her fingers and wrists looked so fragile it was kind of scary.

She _was _sick. Very sick. Not a lie. The story Charlie had told was not just a story. While he stared, eyes bugging out in a slightly creepy way, her skin turned light green.

_Oh, dear. She's going to puke again._

Rosalie bent over her, cutting across Jacob's view, hovering in a strange, protective way. This was all wrong. I knew how Bella felt about almost everything. So I knew that Bella didn't like Rosalie. I'd seen it in the set of her lips when she talked about her. She was _afraid _of Rosalie. Or she had been. None of us understood this new development. Almost as soon as we had returned from our "honeymoon" and Rosalie had laid eyes on pregnant Bella, she had gone out of her way to protect her.

I asked Carlisle about it a couple days after, but he was just as baffled as me.

"I've taken various courses in psychology, Edward, and although I might chalk it up to some kind of maternal instinct in other women, in this case it just _doesn't make sense._ Rosalie hasn't even mentioned anything about her child for decades, and _you_ haven't picked up anything from her lately, right?"

I nodded.

Carlisle shook his head. "I guess, as long as this doesn't directly interfere with our plans, we'll let it play out for now. If it comes to it, though, we can remove her...though I'd rather remove Bella, if it comes down to it." He glanced pointedly at me; I just looked away sulkily.

That was a few days ago.

There was no fear as Bella glanced up at Rosalie now. Her expression was…apologetic or something. Then Rosalie snatched a basin from the floor and held it under Bella's chin just in time for Bella to throw up noisily into it. When she could raise her head, Bella smiled weakly at Jacob, sort of embarrassed. "Sorry about that," she whispered.

I let my head slump against Bella's knees. She put one of her hands against my cheek. Like she was comforting _me_. Fat chance. Jacob walked toward her in a daze until Rosalie hissed at him, suddenly positioning herself between him and the couch. He barely seemed to notice she was there.

"Rose, don't," Bella whispered. "It's fine."

Rosalie moved out of the way, though I could tell she hated to do it. Scowling at him, she crouched by Bella's head, tensed to spring.

"Bella, what's wrong?" he whispered. He crouched to his knees, too, leaning over the back of the couch across from her… _husband_. Across from me. He didn't seem to notice me though, and I barely glanced at him. He reached out for her free hand, and held it in both of his. "Are you all right?" It was a stupid question, and she didn't answer it.

"I'm so glad you came to see me today, Jacob," she said instead.

"What is it, Bella?" he asked, wrapping his hands tight around her fragile fingers.

Instead of answering, she glanced around the room like she was searching for something, both a plea and a warning in her look. Six pairs of anxious yellow eyes stared back at her. Finally, she turned to Rosalie.

"Help me up, Rose?" she asked. Rosalie's lips pulled back over her teeth, and she glared up at Jacob like she wanted to rip his throat out. I was sure that was exactly the case. I wanted to see it.

Bella didn't. "Please, Rose."

Rosalie made a face, but leaned over her again, next to me. She put her arm carefully behind Bella's shoulders.

"No," Jacob whispered. "Don't get up. . . ." _She looks so weak_.

"I'm answering your question," she snapped, sounding a little bit more like the way she usually talked. Rosalie pulled Bella off the couch. The blanket fell to the ground at Bella's feet.

Bella's body was swollen, her torso ballooning out in a strange, sick way. It strained against the faded gray sweatshirt that was way too big for her shoulders and arms. The rest of her seemed thinner, like the big bulge had grown out of what it had sucked from her. It took him a second to realize what the deformed part was. He didn't really understand until she folded her hands tenderly around her bloated stomach, one above and one below, cradling it. She had been getting thinner and more strained with each passing day. I honestly didn't think she would make it, especially with Rosalie "protecting" her.

Jacob saw it then, but still couldn't believe it. The last time he'd seen her was just a month ago. There was no way she could be pregnant. Not _that _pregnant.

This was the last thing he wanted to see, or think about. Still, he couldn't help but imagine the relevant scenes that would have led to this one. The thought that I must have been _inside her,_ that something he hated so much could have taken root in the body of the person he loved, made him want to vomit. But it was worse than that, so much worse. Her distorted body, the bones jabbing against the skin of her face. He could only guess that she looked like this-so pregnant, so sick-because whatever was inside her was taking her life to feed its own. As Carlisle and I had also assumed.

_Because it's a monster. Just like its father. I always knew he would kill her._

I snapped my head up as I heard those words. One second we were both on our knees, and then I was on my feet, towering over him, at least for the moment.

"Outside, Jacob," I snarled.

He was suddenly on his feet, too. Looking down on me now. The moment he'd been anticipating had arrived. "Let's do this," he agreed.

Emmett pushed forward on my other side, with Jasper right behind him. It was like he didn't even care. His eyes flicked to each of us-me, Emmett, Jasper, ticking off how he might kill each of us or be killed himself. For the briefest moment his eyes touched on the two standing in the back. Esme. Alice. Small and distractingly feminine. Then he had the rather absurd thought that he didn't want to fight them, because he didn't want to fight girls. He might have thought twice about that if he had ever really seen what Alice could do. Esme...well, I didn't hold much hope for her in any kind of battle.

_Though I might make an exception for that blonde. _Nice.

"No," Bella gasped, and she stumbled forward, out of balance, to clutch at my arm. Rosalie moved with her, like there was a chain locking them to each other. Their "bond," whatever it was, only seemed to be getting stronger, and it annoyed me because I had no idea what had caused it, or changed their relationship, or whatever the hell had happened to suddenly make them so chummy with each other all of a sudden.

"I just need to talk to him, Bella," I said in a low voice.

I reached up to stroke her face, and that made Jacob see red, that, after all I'd done to her, I was still allowed to touch her that way. I almost turned my head to smirk at him; but then, this was a delicate time, and Bella was in the room. I didn't want to give the game away at this final stage. "Don't strain yourself," I continued to Bella. "Please rest. We'll both be back in just a few minutes."

She stared at my face, reading it carefully. Then she nodded and drooped toward the couch. Rosalie helped lower her back onto the cushions. Bella stared at Jacob, trying to hold his gaze.

"Behave," she insisted. "And then come back."

Jacob didn't answer, making no promises today. He finally looked away and then followed me out the front door. A random, disjointed voice in his head noted, _separating him from the coven wasn't that difficult, huh?_

I kept walking, never checking to see if he was about to spring at my unprotected back. It's not like I needed to check. I would know if and when he decided to attack.

_I guess I'll have to make that decision very quickly, _he thought.

"I'm not ready for you to kill me yet, Jacob Black," I said as I paced quickly away from the house. "You'll have to have a little patience."

He growled under his breath. "Patience isn't my specialty."

I kept walking, maybe a couple hundred yards down the drive away from the house, with Jacob right on my heels. He was all hot, my limbs trembling. On the edge, ready and waiting.

I stopped without warning and pivoted to face him. He froze.

I tried to emulate every picture I had ever seen of people in dire situations, people who had lost hope. I attempted to communicate that feeling with my eyes, staring right into Jacob's. I raised a hand to my forehead, and deliberately focused on nothing, to better simulate a frenzied state. If I were doing it right, mine was the face a man would have if he were about to lose everything. It wasn't a total fabrication; I mean, I was about to lose a lot, more than a year's work, and there was an awful lot of stress associated with it; but not _everything_.

For a moment Jacob couldn't speak. "It's killing her, right? She's dying." His voice was weaker than I expected, I think because he was still in shock. He hadn't wrapped his head around it yet; it was happening too fast._ I_ had had time to get to this point. It was different because he had already lost her so many times, so many ways, in his head, different because she was never really histo lose. _And different because this wasn't my fault._

"My fault," I murmured, and stared at the ground. "Yes," I groaned "Yes, it's killing her." I was milking this for all it was worth. I even brought the family into it; I thought they could use a good show. I didn't include Rosalie; I didn't trust her to play along with things like this anymore.

_Oh no, Edward's about to cry!_

_No, try to make Jacob cry!_

My apparent broken helplessness irritated Jacob. He wanted a fight, not an execution. Where was his smug superiority now? "So why hasn't Carlisle done anything?" he growled. "He's a doctor, right? Get it out of her."

I looked up then and answered in a tired voice. Condescendingly, like I was explaining this to a kindergartener for the tenth time. "She won't let us."

It took a minute for the words to sink in. _Of course, she'll die for the monster spawn_. "Just back up a second. She won't _let _you?" The sarcasm was acid on his tongue. "Did you ever notice that she's exactly as strong as a normal hundred-and-ten pound human girl? How stupid are you vamps? Hold her down and knock her out with drugs!" _Oh, god...did I really just say that?_

Everyone else had a field day with that demand.

_Woooo!_

_Yeah, Jacob, you da man!_

_I always knew he had a wicked streak in him._

_Mm, he's kinda cute when he's being all evil._

"I wanted to," I replied, trying to keep my voice the same. "Carlisle would have. . . ."

_What, too _noble_ are you?_

"No. Not noble. Her 'bodyguard' complicated things."

_Oh. So that's what Blondie is up to. What's in it for her, though? Does the beauty queen want Bella to die so bad?_

"Maybe. Rosalie doesn't look at it quite that way."

"So take the blonde out first. Your kind can be put back together, right? Turn her into a jigsaw and take care of Bella."

"Emmett and Esme are backing her up. Emmett would never let us…and Carlisle won't help me with Esme against it. . . ." I trailed off.

_Oh, brilliant, pin the blame on us._

_You said to wing it, Carlisle!_

_If I'd known you would be this-just-give me a minute or two, I'll get you something._

"You should have left Bella with me," Jacob said. It was a bit late for that, though. _Maybe I should have thought about all this before he knocked her up with the life-sucking monster._

"I didn't know," I said, as quiet as a breath. "I never dreamed. How could we know that a human was able to conceive a child with one of us—"

"When the human should get ripped to shreds in the process?"

I winced dramatically."Yes," I agreed. "They're out there, the sadistic ones, the incubus, the succubus. They exist. But the seduction is merely a prelude to the feast. No one _survives_."

"I didn't realize they had a special name for what you are," Jacob spit out.

"Killing me now doesn't save her," I said quietly.

_Edward, I have something, _Carlisle interjected.

"So what does?" Jacob asked.

_Be ready to sit down and get your acting cap on. This one will bring the house down. First, tell Jacob there's something he must do._

"Jacob, you have to do something for me." I think he saw a calculating glint in my eyes.

"The _hell _I do, parasite!"

I kept staring at him with my crazy-eyes. "For her?"

He clenched his teeth together hard. "I did everything I could to keep her away from you. Every single thing. It's too late."

_Convince him. Say whatever will make him listen. Appeal to his friendship with Bella._

"You know her, Jacob. You connect to her on a level that I don't even understand. You are part of her, and she is part of you. She won't listen to me, because she thinks I'm underestimating her. She thinks she's strong enough for this. . . .She might listen to you."

"Why would she?"

_Tell him he should impregnate her!_

I jerked a little at that; the effort to keep a serious, concerned face was really taxing my acting ability. _WHAT?_

_No, really, we need to distract him, he's still too much of a loose cannon. _

Jacob looked into my eyes and wondered if I was really going crazy._ Can vampires lose their minds?_

"Maybe," I answered his thought. "I don't know. It feels like it. I have to try to hide this in front of her, because stress makes her more ill. She can't keep anything down as it is. I have to be composed; I can't make it harder. But that doesn't matter now. She has to listen to you!" I began to edge closer to him, just to take a different angle on his discomfort.

"I can't tell her anything you haven't. What do you want me to do? Tell her she's acting stupid? She probably already knows that. Tell her she's going to die? I bet she knows that, too."

"You can offer her what she wants." By now we were almost nose-to-nose.

_What is he doing? He's not making any sense. Part of the crazy?_

"I don't care about anything but keeping her alive," I said, suddenly focused now. I had an idea. "If it's a child she wants, she can have it. She can have half a dozen babies, anything she wants." I reached forward and grabbed Jacob's arms, looking urgently into his eyes. _And now, to bring the house down_. "She can have puppies, if that's what it takes."

A chorus of laughter drowned out any thought I had for a few seconds:

_That's priceless! I love it!_

_Puppies! How do you come up with these things?_

_That's not how I would have put, but I do love the play on words._

_Hey guys!-_someone flashed everyone an image of a brown puppy with Bella's face.

They were all practically rolling on the floor then, and I tried desperately to control my expression and not burst out laughing myself; after all, I had an audience only a few inches in front of me.

My stare came across as frenzied but serious, what with all the miniscule expression changes, and Jacob's hard scowl crumbled as he processed those words. He shook off my grasp and stumbled back a step, clearly uncomfortable with my proximity. Then his mouth dropped open in shock as he registered what I had just said. The noise coming from his throat sounded like he was choking. _What is he saying? That Bella should, what? Have a baby? With me? What? How? Is he giving her up? Or does he think she wouldn't mind being shared?_

_Share her! Share her! _The mental chorus chanted.

"Whichever. Whatever keeps her alive."

"That's the craziest thing you've said yet."

_You don't know the half of it. _"She loves you." I stepped toward him again.

"So?"

"She's ready to die to have a child. Maybe she'd accept something less extreme." Another step.

"Don't you know her at all?"

"I know, I know. It's going to take a lot of convincing. That's why I need you. You know how she thinks. Make her see sense." I was deliberately pleading now.

He didn't want to consider, didn't want to imagine, but the images flowed through his conscious mind anyway. He'd fantasized about Bella that way too many times, back when there was still a possibility of them as a couple, and then long after it was clear that the fantasies would only leave festering sores because there was no possibility, none at all. He couldn't stop himself now, even as humiliating as it was. Bella in _his _arms, Bella sighing _his _name…

_Whoa, he's a randy one, isn't he?_

_Well, he is a guy, after all; and they're only after one thing._

_The TV remote control? What does that have to do with this?_

_I meant sex and you know it, you smart-ass. _

Worse still for him, this new image my suggestion conjured; it stuck there, winding threads through his brain like a weed, poisonous and un-killable. Bella, healthy and glowing, so different than now, but something the same: her body, not distorted, changed in a more natural way. Round with _Jacob's _child. He tried to shake off this latest image. "Make _Bella _see sense? What universe do you live in?"

"At least try."

He shook his head quickly. I reached out with one hand, went to stroke his face with it. _Ooh, I like where this is going, _Alice chimed. He slapped my hand away. "Dude, what the hell?" Then I heard it: _He's...he's messing with my head_. _That leech is screwing around with the inside of my head! _"Where is this psycho crap coming from? Are you making this up as you go?" He retreated several steps, determined now to keep his distance.

_Huh. The guy's pretty perceptive. _"I've been thinking of nothing but ways to save her since I realized what she was planning to do. What she would die to do. But I didn't know how to contact you. I knew you wouldn't listen if I called. I would have come to find you soon, if you hadn't come today. But to leave her, even for a few minutes...her condition…it changes so fast. The thing is…growing. Swiftly. I can't be away from her now."

"What _is _it?"

"None of us have any idea, but it is already stronger than she is." That part was actually true-the part about how strong it was. Quite eerie, actually.

Jacob suddenly imagined a swelling monster, breaking her from the inside out.

_EEEEWWWWW! _Everyone 'said' at once._ Jacob, there are children in the audience here! _Alice thought.

_There are? Who?_

_Me!_

_Alice, you were only pretending to be under 18 last night-_

_Shut it, you!_

"Help me stop it," I whispered, trying to ignore what had now become noise. "Help me stop this from happening."

"_How? _By offering my stud services?" He flinched when he said that. "You're really sick. She'll never listen to this."

"Try. There's nothing to lose now. How will it hurt?"

"But it won't work."

"Maybe not. Maybe it will confuse her, though. Maybe she'll falter in her resolve. One moment of doubt is all I need."

"And then you pull the rug out from under the offer? 'Just kidding, Bella'?"

"If she wants a child, that's what she gets. I won't rescind." Yeah right, I won't.

_I can't believe I'm even thinking about this. Bella would punch me-not that I care about that, but it would probably break her hand again. I shouldn't let him talk to me, mess with my head. I should just kill him now._

"Not now," I whispered. "Not yet. Right or wrong, it would destroy her, and you know it. No need to be hasty. If she won't listen to you, you'll get your chance."

He stared at me for a long moment. "I'm only going to try."

"That's all I'm asking."

"Then we have a deal?"

I nodded and held out my hand.

Swallowing his disgust, he reached out to take it. His fingers closed around mine, and shook it once.

I didn't release his hand right away, instead opting to gaze directly into his eyes. "If it doesn't work out...you know, if Bella...do you think _we_ could have a shot?"

His widened in shock, then in incredulous anger. He yanked his hand away and glared at me. "I'll do this for Bella, and if it doesn't work, I'll KILL YOU!"

Alice sniffled and offered,_ That was beautiful. I almost believed it._

_Yeah, you would have liked to see Jacob and me getting it on, huh?_

_Hot and cold, I can practically hear the sizzle!_

Suddenly I was hit with disturbing images involving me and-_dammit, Alice!_

_Tee hee hee..._

_

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_**Ok, so this chapter was heavy on people talking in each other's heads. Please let me know if it was overly confusing, or distracted from the flow of the story. Though I'm not trying to make this high quality work, I'm going for at least mediocre, and overall enjoyable. Thanks, and please keep reviews coming. Constructive criticism always welcome!**


	8. Battle Plans

**A/N: There was a little confusion last chapter regarding the "eavesdropping" done by Edward and co. The way I wrote it, it kind of seemed like the other Cullens had mind-reading abilities too, or something. What I intended was this: I established pretty early on that Edward's abilities went beyond simple mind-reading; in this case, he established a sort of "conference call" between the appropriate Cullens and himself, wherein they could see the same things he did and could all talk to each other. Yeah, it's off-canon, but it's more fun that way, and what is fanfiction for, if not for the lulz? Hope that cleared up any confusion people had. Now without further ado, on with the chapter!

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Jacob had a little mental crisis on our way back to the house._ This is stupid, like some Goth version of a bad sitcom; only instead of being the A/V dweeb about to ask the head cheerleader to the prom, I'm the finished-second-place werewolf about to ask the vampire's wife to shack up and procreate. Nice._

_No, I won't do it. It's twisted and wrong. Forget all about what he said. _But he decided he would talk to her. He'd _try_ to make her listen to him. And she wouldn't. Just like always. Or, if she started to, I would make sure to intervene.

Along with his inner monologue, he also muttered angrily under his breath, now about me, now about Bella, now about "stupid leeches." I sidled over and put my arm around his shoulders. I murmured in his ear, "Settle down, Jacob. You don't want to talk to Bella when you're all angry and bad-moody, do ya?" I gave his shoulders a squeeze.

He quickly shook me off and jerked away. "I can handle myself, leech! Just...stay away from me and you won't have any problems from _me_." _What has gotten into this guy all of a sudden?_

He hesitated in the open doorway, not sure what to do now. He felt more comfortable there, with a little bit of fresh air blowing in from outside. I walked into the middle of the huddle. Bella watched me anxiously, and then her eyes flickered to Jacob for a second. Her face turned a grayish pale, and I could see the stress was making her feel worse.

"We're going to let Jacob and Bella speak privately," I said.

"Over my pile of ashes," Rosalie hissed at me. She was still hovering by Bella's head, one of her cold hands placed possessively on Bella's sallow cheek.

I didn't look at her. "Bella," I said. "Jacob wants talk to you. Are you afraid to be alone with him?"

Bella looked at him, confused. Then she looked at Rosalie. "Rose, it's fine. Jake's not going to hurt us. Go with Edward."

"It might be a trick," she warned.

"I don't see how," Bella said.

"Carlisle and I will always be in your sight, Rosalie," I said. My voice was cracking, showing the anger through it; Rosalie's new attitude was more grating than ever. "We're the ones she's afraid of."

"No," Bella whispered. Her eyes were glistening, her lashes wet. "No, Edward. I'm not. . . ."

I shook my head, smiling a little. "I didn't mean it that way, Bella. I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

_Sickening, _Jacob thought.

Bella was beating herself up about hurting my feelings. Because _I_ was totally the one hurting here. The sadist in me wanted to laugh out loud; the schemer held me back. "Everyone," I said, motioning toward the door. "Please." The composure I was trying to keep up for Bella was shaky. The others could see. Silently, they moved out the door while Jacob shifted out of the way. Almost immediately the room was cleared except for Rosalie, hesitating in the middle of the floor, and me, still waiting by the door.

"Rose," Bella said quietly. "I want you to go."

She glared at me and then gestured for me to go first. I went out. Rosalie gave Jacob a long warning glower, and then she left, too.

Once they were alone (well, as alone as I would ever let them be), he crossed the room and sat on the floor next to Bella. He took both her cold hands in his, rubbing them carefully. I shamelessly eavesdropped on their conversation; it was practically second nature for me, now.

"Thanks, Jake. That feels good."

"I'm not going to lie, Bells. You're hideous."

"I know," she sighed. "I'm scary-looking."

"Thing-from-the-swamp scary."

She laughed. "It's so good having you here. It feels nice to smile. I don't know how much more drama I can stand." A pause. "Okay, okay, I bring it on myself."

"Yeah, you do. What're you thinking, Bells? Seriously!"

"Did he ask you to yell at me?"

"Sort of. Though I can't figure why he thinks you'd listen to me. You never have before."

She sighed.

"I told you—," he started to say.

"Did you know that _'I told you so' _has a brother, Jacob?" she asked, cutting him off. "His name is '_Shut the hell up._'"

_Oh, spare me. I knew you were unimaginative, but The _Simpsons? _Girl, we need to expose you to more culture. That is now on the list._

"Good one," Jacob said sarcastically.

"I can't take credit; I got it off a rerun of _The Simpsons._"

"Missed that one."

"It was funny."

They didn't talk for a minute. Both silently noted that her hands were starting to warm up a little.

"Did he really ask you to talk to me?"

"Mm-hm. To talk some sense into you. _There's _a battle that's lost before it starts."

"So why did you agree?"

Jacob didn't answer. He still couldn't articulate a reason why. He only knew that every second he spent with her was only going to add to the pain he would have to suffer later. Like a junkie with a limited supply, the day of reckoning was coming. With an attitude like that, he might have made a halfway-decent vampire.

"It'll work out, you know," she said after a quiet minute. "I believe that."

That made him angry all over again. "Is dementia one of your symptoms?" he snapped.

She laughed, though his anger was so intense that his hands were shaking around hers. I tensed, ready to defend her, if need be. "Maybe," she said. "I'm not saying things will work out _easily_, Jake. But how could I have lived through all that I've lived through and not believe in magic by this point?"

"_Magic?"_

"Especially for you," she said. She was smiling. She pulled one of her hands away and pressed it against hischeek. "More than anyone else, you've got some magic waiting to make things right for you."

"What are you babbling about?"

"Edward told me once what it was like; your imprinting thing. He said it was like _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, like magic. You'll find who you're really looking for, Jacob, and maybe then all of this will make sense."

_Oh. My. God. _I had two distinct thoughts about what she said. One: _She is quite possibly one of the most emotionally manipulative people I have ever met. _And two: _She has obviously never read the play; that, or she didn't really understand the plot. Those "love potions" and spells didn't bring any happiness to anyone; the fairy queen slept with a _jackass_, for crying out loud! Then again, those imprinted girls sleep with wolf-boys, so maybe it's not as far off as I thought..._

My thoughts were interrupted when Jacob growled at her. "If you think that imprinting could ever make sense of this _insanity _. . ." he struggled for words. "Do you really think that just because I might someday imprint on some stranger it would make this right?" He jabbed a finger toward her swollen body. "Tell me what the point was then, Bella! What was the point of me loving you? What was the point of _you _loving _him_? When you die"—the words were a snarl—"how is that ever right again? What's the point to all the pain? Mine, yours, his! You'll kill him, too, not that I care about that. So what was the point of your twisted love story, in the end? If there is _any _sense, please show me, Bella, because I don't see it."

She sighed. "I don't know yet, Jake. But I just… feel… that this is all going somewhere good, hard to see as it is now. I guess you could call it _faith_."

"You're dying for _nothing_, Bella! Nothing!"

Her hand dropped to her stomach, caressed it. She didn't have to say the words for him to know what she was thinking. She was dying for _it_. "I'm not going to die," she said through her teeth, and even _he_ could tell she was repeating things she'd said before. "I _will _keep my heart beating. I'm strong enough for that."

"That's a load of crap, Bella. You've been trying to keep up with the supernatural for too long. No normal person can do it. You're _not _strong enough."

"I can do this. I can do this," she muttered.

"Doesn't look like it to me. So what's your plan? I hope you have one."

She nodded, and was silent for a moment. Then, "Did you know Esme jumped off a cliff? When she was human, I mean."

He started, confused by the sudden topic change. "So?"

"So she was close enough to dead that they didn't even bother taking her to the emergency room; they took her right around to the morgue. Her heart was still beating, though, when Carlisle found her. . . ."

Then he realized. "You're not planning on surviving this human," he stated dully.

"No. I'm not stupid.. I guess you probably have your own opinion on that point, though."

"Emergency vampirization," he mumbled bitterly.

"It worked for Esme. And Emmett, and Rosalie, and even Edward. None of them were in such great shape. Carlisle only changed them because it was that or death. He doesn't end lives, he saves them."

_Offers something, too, you forgot that, _I mentally added._ The only price is a bit of pain, and your soul. And a good dose of humiliation, to boot._

Now he began to beg. "Listen to me, Bells. Don't do it that way." He suddenly decided that he needed her to stay alive, in some form. In any form. He took a deep breath. "Don't wait until it's too late, Bella. Not that way. Live. Okay? Just live. Don't do this to me. Don't do it to him." His voice got harder, louder. "You know what he's going to do when you die. You've seen it before. You want him to go back to those Italian killers?"

Struggling to soften his voice, he asked, "Remember when I got mangled up by those newborns? What did you tell me?"

He waited, but she wouldn't answer.

"You told me to be good and listen to Carlisle," he reminded her. "And what did I do? I listened to the vampire. For you."

"You listened because it was the right thing to do."

"Okay-pick either reason."

She took a deep breath. "It's not the right thing now." Her gaze touched her big round stomach and she whispered under her breath, "I won't kill him."

Jacob got angry again. Now Jasper was holding Rosalie back. "Let me go, he's gonna kill her!"

"No he's not, Jacob would never harm Bella."

Rosalie just growled.

"Oh, I hadn't heard the great news. A bouncing baby boy, huh? Should'a brought some blue balloons," Jacob said, biting out the words.

"I don't _know_ he's a boy," she admitted, a little sheepish. "The ultrasound wouldn't work. The membrane around the baby is too hard, like their skin. So he's a little mystery. But I always see a boy in my head."

"It's not some pretty baby in there, Bella."

"We'll see," she said. Almost smug.

"_You _won't," he snarled.

"You're very pessimistic, Jacob. There is definitely a chance that I might walk away from this."

He was now so angry he couldn't answer. He looked down and deliberately breathed deep and slow, trying to get a grip on his fury.

"Jake," she said, and she patted his hair, stroked his cheek. "It's going to be okay. Shh. It's okay."

"No. It will not be okay."

"Shh."

"What's the deal, Bella? I thought the whole point was that you wanted your vampire more than anything. And now you're just giving him up? That doesn't make any sense. Since when are you desperate to be a mom? If you wanted that so much, why did you marry a vampire?"

He was now dangerously close to that offer I suggested that he make.

She sighed. "It's not like that. I didn't really care about having a baby. I didn't even think about it. It's not just having a baby. It's… well… _this _baby."

"It's a killer, Bella. Look at yourself."

"He's not. It's me. I'm just weak and human. But I can tough this out, Jake, I can—"

"Aw, _come on! _Shut up, Bella. You can spout this crap to your bloodsucker, but you're not fooling me. You know you're not going to make it."

She glared at him. "I do not _know _that. I'm worried about it, sure."

"_Worried _about it," he repeated through clenched teeth.

She gasped then and clutched at her stomach. The baby just kicked again. "I'm fine," she panted. "It's nothing."

He wasn't listening; her hands had pulled her sweatshirt to the side, and now he could see, and he stared, horrified, at the skin it exposed. Her stomach looked like it was stained with big splotches of purple-black ink.

She saw his stare, and yanked the fabric back in place.

"He's strong, that's all," she said defensively.

The ink spots were bruises. _Strong enough to bruise her ribs,sure, it's nothing, nothing at all, a trifle really, _I thought bitterly. It really was killing her, bit by bit.

Jacob almost gagged, watching it hurt her. Suddenly, he felt a little crazy.

"Bella," he said.

She looked up, still breathing heavy.

"Bella, don't do this."

"Jake—"

"Listen to me. Don't get your back up yet. Okay? Just listen. What if… ?"

"What if what?"

"What if this wasn't a one-shot deal? What if it wasn't all or nothing? What if you just listened to Carlisle like a good girl, and kept yourself alive?"

"I won't—"

"I'm not done yet. So you stay alive. Then you can start over. This didn't work out. Try again."

She frowned. "I don't understand. What do you mean, try again? You can't think Edward would let me… ? And what difference would it make? I'm sure any baby—"

"Yes," he snapped. "Any kid _of his _would be the same."

Her tired face just got more confused. "What?" It really wasn't surprising; as tired as she was lately, and how Jacob was dancing around the point, it wasn't readily obvious what he was talking about.

Then she blinked, and she got it...

"Oh. Ugh. _Please_, Jacob. You think I should kill my baby and replace it with some generic substitute? Artificial insemination?" ...Then again, maybe not. "Why would I want to have some stranger's baby? I suppose it just doesn't make a difference? Any baby will do?"

"I didn't mean that," he muttered. "Not a stranger."

"Then what are you saying?"

"Nothing. I'm saying nothing. Same as ever."

"Where did that come from?"

"Forget it, Bella."

She frowned, suspicious. "Did _he _tell you to say that?"

He hesitated, too long. "No."

"He did, didn't he?"

"No, really. He didn't say anything about artificial whatever."

She relaxed again then, and she sank back against the pillows, exhausted. She stared off to the side and spoke, talking to no one, really. "He would do anything for me. And I'm hurting him so much.… But what is he thinking? That I would trade this"—her hand traced across her belly—"for some stranger's . . ." She mumbled the last part, and then her voice trailed off.

"You don't have to hurt him," Jacob whispered. It burned like poison in his mouth to beg for anything for my sake, but now he thought that that angle was probably the best bet for keeping her alive. Poor guy, loving a heartless girl. "You could make him happy again, Bella. And I really think he's losing it. Honestly, I do."

"Not a stranger?" she murmured to herself. "What exactly did Edward say to you?" she asked in a low voice.

"Nothing. He just thought you might listen to me."

"Not that. About trying again."

Her eyes locked on his.

"Nothing," he said, a little too quickly, desperately.

Her mouth fell open a little. "Wow."

It was silent for a few heartbeats.

"He really would do _anything_, wouldn't he?" she whispered.

"I told you he was going crazy. Literally, Bells."

"I'm surprised you didn't tell on him right away. Get him in trouble." She grinned.

"Thought about it." He tried to grin back, but the smile froze. She knew what he was offering, and she wasn't going to think twice about it. _Burn_.

"Aw, that could have been pretty hot," Alice whispered from beside me.

I quickly shushed her; I didn't want to miss the rest.

"There isn't much you wouldn't do for me, either, is there?" Bella whispered. "I really don't know why you bother. I don't deserve either of you."

"It makes no difference, though, does it?"

"Not this time." She sighed. "I wish I could explain it to you right so that you would understand. I can't hurt him"—she pointed to her stomach—"any more than I could pick up a gun and shoot you. I love him."

"Why do you always have to love the wrong things, Bella?"

"I don't think I do."

Jacob swallowed the lump in his throat. "Trust me." he started to stand.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm not doing any good here."

She held out her hand, pleading. "Don't go."

"I don't belong here. I've got to get back."

"Why did you come today?" she asked, still reaching.

"Just to see if you were really alive. I didn't believe you were sick like Charlie said."

"Will you come back again? Before . . ."

He sighed. "I'm not going to hang around and watch you die, Bella."

She flinched. "You're right, you're right. You _should _go."

He headed for the door.

"Bye," she whispered behind me. "Love you, Jake."

_Ooh, and the manipulator strikes again! _Really, forget dazzling, _this _girl could be a world-class man-eater. _Literally _and_ figuratively, once she loosens up a bit._

Her last comment almost made Jacob go back. He wanted to turn around and fall down on his knees and started begging again. I would have liked to see that, but unfortunately for me, Jacob had learned a bit of wisdom by now. He knew that he had to quit Bella, quit her cold turkey, before she killed him, like he believed she was going to kill me. _I highly doubt that, dog._

"Sure, sure," he mumbled on his way out. He didn't take any notice of us as he blew past. He ignored his bike, standing all alone in the middle of the meadow. He stripped down (nice physique, actually, in a purely objective sort of way), not caring who might be watching, and started running. He blurred into wolf mid-stride. I followed, doing my best to stay out of scent-range; I had to know what would happen now.

They were all waiting. Of course they were.

_**Jacob, Jake, **_eight voices chorused in relief.

_**Come home **_**now**_**, **_the Alpha voice ordered. Sam was furious.

The pack saw all the horror-Bella's mottled stomach; her raspy voice saying, _he's strong, that's all_; the burning man in Edward's face: _watching her sicken and waste away… seeing it hurting her_; Rosalie crouched over Bella's limp body: _Bella's life means nothing to her-_and no one had anything to say.

Their shock was just a silent shout. Wordless.

_**!**_

They all started running to meet him. It was almost dark; the clouds covered the sunset completely. They met up about ten miles out of La Push, in a clearing left by the loggers. It was out of the way, wedged between two spurs of the mountain, where no one would see them.

The babble in my head was total chaos. Everyone shouting at once. Sam's hackles were sticking straight up, and he was growling in an unbroken stream as he paced back and forth around the top of the ring. Two more moved like shadows behind him, their ears flat against the sides of their head. The whole circle was agitated, on their feet and snarling in low bursts. At first their anger was undefined, and I thought I was in for it. I was too messed up to care about that. They could do whatever they wanted to me for circumventing orders.

And then the unfocused confusion of thoughts began to move together.

_**How can this be? What does it mean? What will it be? Not safe. Not right. Dangerous. Unnatural. Monstrous. An abomination. We can't allow it.**_

The pack was pacing in synchronization now, thinking in synchronization, all but Jacob and one other. He sat beside whoever it was while the pack circled around them.

_**The treaty does not cover this. This puts everyone in danger.**_

I tried to understand the spiraling voices, tried to follow the curling pathway the thoughts made to see where they were leading, but it wasn't making sense. The pictures in the center of their thoughts were Jacob'spictures-the very worst of them.

They fear it, too.

_**But they won't do anything about it.**_

Protecting Bella Swan.

**_We can't let that influence us. The safety of our families, of everyone here, is more important than one human. If they won't kill it, we have to. __Protect the tribe. Protect our families. We have to kill it before it's too late._**

Another of his memories, my words this time: _The thing is growing._

Swiftly.

I struggled to focus, to pick out individual voices. This group mind stuff could be dizzying, at times.

_**No time to waste, **_one thought.

_**It will mean a fight, **_another cautioned. _**A bad one.**_

_**We're ready, **_another insisted, and I gave up keeping track at all, and just let the voices flow around me.

_**We'll need surprise on our side.**_

_**If we catch them divided, we can take them down separately. It will increase our chances of victory.**_

_**Wait, **_Jacob thought. The circling paused for one beat, and then they were pacing again.

_**There's little time.**_

_**But...what are you thinking? You wouldn't attack them for breaking the treaty this afternoon. Now you're planning an ambush, when the treaty is still intact?**_

_**This is not something our treaty anticipated, **_Sam said. _**This is a danger to every human in the area. We don't know what kind of creature the Cullens have bred, but we know that it is strong and fast-growing. And it will be too young to follow any treaty. Remember the newborn vampires we fought? Wild, violent, beyond the reach of reason or restraint. Imagine one like that, but protected by the Cullens.**_

_**We don't know— **_

**_We _don't _know. _ _And we can't take chances with the unknown in this case. We can only allow the Cullens to exist while we're absolutely sure that they can be trusted not to cause harm. This… thing cannot be trusted._**

_**They don't like it any more than we do.**_

The image of Rosalie's face, her protective crouch, suddenly went on display for everyone.

_**Some are ready to fight for it, no matter what it is.**_

**_It's just a _baby_, for crying out loud._**

_**Not for long, **_Leah whispered.

**_Jake, buddy, this is a big problem. __We can't just ignore it._**

**_You're making it into something bigger than it is, _**he argued.** _The only one who's in danger here is Bella._**

**_Again, by her own choice, _ _but this time her choice affects us all._**

_**I don't think so.**_

_**We can't take that chance. We won't allow a blood drinker to hunt on our lands.**_

_**Then tell them to leave.**_

_**And inflict the menace on others? When blood drinkers cross our land, we destroy them, no matter where they plan to hunt. We protect everyone we can.**_

_**This is crazy, **_Jacob said. _**This afternoon you were afraid to put the pack in danger.**_

_**This afternoon I didn't know our families were at risk.**_

_**I can't believe this! How are you going to kill this creature without killing Bella?**_

There were no words, but the silence was full of meaning.

Jacob howled. _**She's human, too! Doesn't our protection apply to her?**_

_**She's dying anyway, **_Leah thought. _**We'll just shorten the process.**_

That did it. Jacob leaped toward the wolf I assumed was Leah, teeth bared. Another wolf's teeth cut into his flank, dragging him back.

Jacob howled in pain and fury and turned on him.

_**Stop**_**_! _**he ordered in a strange mental echo. It was odd; I think I would have stopped, if I had actually been in motion.

Jacob had a much more violent reaction to it.

His legs seemed to buckle under him, and he jerked to a halt, only barely managing to keep on his feet.

_**You will not be cruel to him, Leah,**_ the commander said. _**Bella's sacrifice is a heavy price, and we will **_**all **_**recognize that. It is against everything we stand for to take a human life. Making an exception to that code is a bleak thing. We will **_**all **_**mourn for what we do tonight.**_

**_Tonight? _ _Sam_, I_ think we should talk about this some more. Consult with the Elders, at least. You can't seriously mean for us to—_**

**_We can't afford your tolerance for the Cullens now. There is no time for debate. __You _will _do as you are told, Seth._**

A second wolf's front knees folded, and his head fell forward under the weight of the black one's command.

**_We need the whole pack for this. Jacob, you are our strongest fighter. You _will _fight with us tonight. I understand that this is hard for you, so you will concentrate on their fighters-Emmett and Jasper Cullen. You don't have to be involved with the…other part. Quil and Embry will fight with you._**

_**Paul, Jared, and I will take on Edward and Rosalie. I think, from the information Jacob has brought us, they will be the ones guarding Bella. Carlisle and Alice will also be close, possibly Esme. Brady, Collin, Seth, and Leah will **__**concentrate on them. Whoever has a clear line on**__—_he mentally stuttered over Bella's name_—__**the creature will take it. Destroying the creature is our first priority.**_

The pack rumbled in nervous agreement. The tension had everyone's fur standing on end. The pacing was quicker, and the sound of the paws against the brackish floor was sharper, toenails tearing into the soil.

There was no resistance in him, however. He would-they _all_ would-obey no matter how they felt about it. They had no other choice. I didn't understand this phenomenon, and the only thought I could get that made any sense was: When the Alpha spoke, the pack followed. Sam had never pushed his authority this far before. He wouldn't force this if he didn't believe that he had no other choice. He really believed it was their duty to destroy Bella and the monster she carried. He really believed there was no time to waste. He believed it enough to die for it. I saw that he would face me himself; my ability to read thoughts made me the greatest threat in Sam's mind. He would not let someone else take on that danger.

Sam saw Jasper as the second-greatest opponent, which is why he'd given Jacob the task of fighting him. He'd left the easiest targets for the younger wolves and Leah. Little Alice was no danger without her future vision to guide her,-_how little you know, dog-_and they knew from our time of alliance that Esme was not a fighter. Unfortunately, _that_ was all too true.

**_Pull it together, Jacob. _ _The tribe comes first._**

_**I was wrong today, Sam.**_

_**Your reasons were wrong then. But now we have a duty to fulfill.**_

_**No.**_

The black one snarled and stopped pacing. He stared into Jacob's eyes and a deep growl slid between his teeth.

_**Yes**_, the Alpha decreed, his "echo voice" blistering with the heat of his authority. _**There are no loopholes tonight. You, Jacob, are going to fight the Cullens with us. You, with Quil and Embry, will take care of Jasper and Emmett. You are obligated to protect the tribe. That is why you exist. You **_**will **_**perform this obligation**_**.**

His shoulders hunched as the edict apparently crushed him. His legs collapsed, and he was on his belly like a beaten wolf.

_**No member of the pack can refuse the Alpha...**_

I didn't know what that actually meant, but I did know one thing. This just got even more complicated.

_Because it wasn't already complicated enough...

* * *

_**And the plot thickens, mwahaha...ok, so far it's not even my plot, but bear with me here. I have plans for the ending. Big plans. Off-canon plans. They will TEAR THE EARTH ASUNDER! Or just be a good read, whatever. Thanks for reading; I appreciate all my readers' support! **


	9. Dangerous Complications

I ran back home, as fast as my legs would take me. Carlisle met me at the door. "Why so worried, Edward?"

"Those wolf-boys are on the warpath. They're coming here _tonight_."

"They really expect to take us on?"

"Their main objective is to kill Bella."

Carlisle's eyes widened. "We can't let that happen. This is the opportunity of a lifetime for me-for _us_. This is an immense undertaking, especially for you. We must make sure she is born."

_Huh_? "Gives birth," I automatically corrected.

"Pardon?"

"We must make sure that Bella lives and gives birth, is what you meant to say, right?"

"Edward, it's what I _did_ say. Has stress made you hard of hearing? Now let's go inside. It seems we need to make battle plans."

I stood frozen in the doorway, shocked by his response. He had clearly said _we must make sure she is born. _Yet he honestly believed he had said something else; something similar, but fundamentally different. The statement he _thought _he'd said was Bella-centric, but what he'd actually said was more focused on...I shook my head to clear it. There was something weird going on here, but I didn't have the luxury of dwelling on it right now. Carlisle was right; we had to plan for battle.

We had barely begun, standing around the kitchen counter, when I heard a most unwelcome mental conversation.

_**Maybe we should be thinking something like, "We come in peace," **_Seth thought.

_**Go for it, **_Jacob sarcastically invited.

_**Edward? **_Seth called the name tentatively. _**Edward, you there? Okay, now I feel kinda stupid.**_

_**You sound stupid, too.**_

_**Think he can hear us?**_

They were less than a mile out now. _**I think so. Hey, Edward. If you can hear me, circle the wagons, bloodsucker. You've got a problem.**_

**We've **_**got a problem**__, _Seth corrected.

There was something strange about Jacob. I'd felt his mind before, but it seemed different now. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, though. He seemed...Freer? More confident? He...wasn't _bound_ to anything. Before, I could sense threads of the others, always on the edge of himself, even when he was alone. It had held him like a tether, one in particular, the one that connected him the leader. Now he was truly on his own. But where had that come from? It hadn't been long since the last time we exchanged pleasantries.

Then they broke through the trees into the lawn. I stood on the porch between Emmett and Jasper.

"Jacob? Seth? What's going on?"

Jacob slowed and then paced back a few steps. The smell was so sharp through their noses that it was almost overpowering to them. Seth whined quietly, hesitating, and then fell back behind him.

To answer my question, Jacob ran his mind over the confrontation with Sam, moving through it backward. Seth thought with him, filling in the gaps, showing the scene from another angle. The double onslaught almost made me dizzy. I was especially interested in how Jacob "broke off" from the pack, to become an Alpha himself. _That_ was what was different about him. He had decided to take up the "mantle of leadership" and somehow that had freed him from Sam's domination tactics. Was that something peculiar to those wolf-people, or could I attempt something like that myself? I wanted to know more about how that worked. Unfortunately, I didn't get the time to dwell on that.

When they got to the part in their meeting about the "abomination," I hissed furiously. "They want to kill Bella," I said flatly.

Emmett and Jasper, not having heard the first part of the conversation, misunderstood my statement . They were right next to me in a flash, teeth exposed.

_**Hey, now, **_Seth thought, backing away.

"Guys-not _them_! The others. The pack is coming," I corrected.

Emmett and Jasper rocked back on their heels; Emmett turned to me.

"What's _their _problem?" Emmett demanded.

"The same one as mine," I hissed. "But they have their own plan to handle it. Get the others. Call Carlisle! We all need to know what's going on now."

_**I'm going to go take a look around, **_Seth said. _**Run the western perimeter.**_

"Will you be in danger, Seth?" I asked.

The two exchanged a glance.

_**Don't think so, **_they thought together. And then Jacob added, _**But maybe I should go. Just in case…**_

_**They'll be less likely to challenge me, **_Seth pointed out._**I'm just a kid to them.**_

_**You're just a kid to **_**me****_, kid._**

_**I'm outta here. You need to coordinate with the Cullens.**_

He wheeled and darted into the darkness.

Jacob and I stood facing each other in the dark meadow. Emmett went inside to get everyone together again. Jasper was watching the place where Seth had vanished into the woods. Alice appeared on the porch and then, after staring at Jacob with anxious eyes for a long moment, she flitted to Jasper's side. Rosalie was inside with Bella, still guarding her from the wrong dangers.

"This isn't the first time I've owed you my gratitude, Jacob," I whispered. "I would never have asked for this from you."

_Yeah, you would._

I thought about it, about the weird crush he had on Bella, and how fun he was to mess with, and then nodded. "I suppose you're right about that."

He sighed heavily. _**Well, this isn't the first time that I didn't do it for you.**_

"Right," I murmured.

_**Sorry I didn't do any good today. Told you she wouldn't listen to me.**_

"I know. I never really believed she would. But . . ."

_**You had to try. I get it. She any better?**_

I looked down. "Worse," I whispered.

That one word floored him. He was grateful when Alice spoke.

"Jacob, would you mind switching forms?" Alice asked. "I want to know what's going on."

"He needs to stay linked to Seth," I told her.

"Well, then would _you _be so kind as to tell me what's happening?"

I explained quickly, out loud, for the benefit of Jacob; I still didn't want him to know _all_ about my particular gift. "The pack thinks Bella's become a problem. They foresee potential danger from the… from what she's carrying. They feel it's their duty to remove that danger. Jacob and Seth disbanded from the pack to warn us. The rest are planning to attack tonight."

Alice hissed, leaning away from Jacob.

_**Nobody out here, **_Seth reported. _**All's quiet on the western front, as they say.**_

_**They may go around.**_

_**I'll make a loop.**_

"We should take up a defensive position," Jasper said.

I nodded. "Let's get inside."

_**I'll run perimeter with Seth. If I get too far for you to hear my head, listen for my howl.**_

"I will."

We went back into the house, while Jacob turned and ran toward the west. I kept my mental ears open to hear their conversations; I did NOT need to be blind-sided at this stage of the game.

_**I'm still not finding much, **_Seth said.

_**I'll take half the circle. Move fast; we don't want them to have a chance to sneak past us.**_

They ran in silence, and the minutes passed. I continued to listen to them.

_**Why're you so down, Jake? I'll bet Sam won't bring the pack tonight. He's not going to launch a suicide mission.**_

Jacob sighed.

_**Oh. This isn't about Sam so much, is it? **__**You think Bella's going to die anyway, **_Seth whispered.

_**Yeah, she is.**_

_**Poor Edward. He must be crazy.**_

_**Literally.**_

My name brought other memories boiling to the surface of his mind. Seth read them in astonishment. And then he was howling. _**Oh, man! No way! You did not! That just plain ol' sucks rocks, Jacob! And you know it, too! I can't believe you said you'd shack up with her. What **_**is**_** that? You have to tell him no.**_

_**Shut up, shut up, you idiot! They're going to think the pack is coming!**_

_**Oops**__! _He cut off mid-howl.

Jacob turned and started loping in toward the house. _**Just keep out of this, Seth. Take the whole circle for now.**_

Seth seethed and Jacob ignored him.

_**False alarm, false alarm, **_he called as he got closer in. _**Sorry. Seth is young. He forgets things. No one's attacking. False alarm.**_

When he got to the meadow, I stared out at him from a dark window. He ran in, wanting to be sure I got the message.

_**There's nothing out there, you got that?**_

I nodded.

"It was a false alarm," I explained to everyone gathered in Bella's room, repeating what Jacob had told me. "Seth was upset about something else, and he forgot we were listening for a signal. He's very young, after all."

"Nice to know we have toddlers guarding the fort," Emmett grumbled.

"They've done us a great service tonight, Emmett," Carlisle said. "At great personal sacrifice."

"Yeah, I know. I'm just jealous. Wish I was out there."

"Seth doesn't think Sam will attack now," I said. "Not with us forewarned, and lacking two members of the pack."

"What does Jacob think?" Carlisle asked.

"He's not as optimistic."

No one spoke. Carlisle moved to take Bella's temperature and other vitals. Again.

"Don't touch her! You'll wake her up," Rosalie whispered.

He sighed. "Rosalie," Carlisle murmured.

"Don't start with me, Carlisle. We let you have your way earlier, but that's all we're allowing."

It seemed like Rosalie and Bella were both talking in plurals now. Like they'd formed a union of their own. Jacob paced quietly in front of the house. Each pass brought him a little closer. He desperately wanted to know what was going on in here. He could hear, but not being able to see was driving him batty.

A few more minutes, a few more passes, and his fur was brushing the side of the porch as he paced. Finally he just gave in and stopped underneath a window. He peered into the front room, expecting to see something very similar to the scene this afternoon. But it had changed so much from the last time he was here. The glass wall was gone; it was metal now. We had dragged all the furniture out of the way, and Bella was curled up awkwardly on a narrow bed in the center of the open space. In the intervening time Carlisle had outfitted the room like a room in the hospital ICU, complete with vital organ monitors and a plasma drip. Occasionally Carlisle switched the IV to a kind of nutrient fluid that provided certain vitamins and minerals that she was no longer getting now that she couldn't keep anything down. The lights on the monitors flashed, but there was no sound.

She choked a little in her uneasy sleep, and both Rosalie and I moved in to hover over her. Her body jerked, and she whimpered. Rosalie smoothed her hand across Bella's forehead. I stiffened and growled, ready to attack her, get her away from Bella, but Emmett wrenched himself between us before there was time to blink. He held his hands up to me.

"Not tonight, Edward. We've got other things to worry about."

I turned away from them, and I met Jacob's eyes for one moment, and then he dropped back to all fours and ran back into the dark forest, running to join Seth, running away from what was behind him. Worse. Yes, indeed, she was worse.

* * *

It was early the next morning. I lay sprawled in an easy chair in our family room. It had been a rough night for all of us, most especially Bella. She couldn't keep anything down anymore; not even fluids. Carlisle was almost certain that the only nutrients she was getting now were coming through that tube. Almost out of habit now, I followed the thoughts of Jacob or Seth, whichever happened to be running perimeter at the moment. At that hour, it was Seth. Seth's thoughts were empty, just a blur of green and gray as the woods flew past him. It was restful. It helped to fill my head with what he saw rather than letting my own thoughts take center stage.

Then Seth's piercing howl broke the early morning quiet. Jacob lurched up from the ground, and I sat up, fully alert to his cry. There was another wolf coming this way. Who was it?

_**Morning, boys.**_

A shocked whine broke through Seth's teeth, then they both snarled as they read deeper into the new thoughts.

_**Oh, man! Go **_**away**_**, Leah!**_Seth groaned.

Seth threw his head back, ready to howl again-this time to complain.

_**Cut the noise, Seth, **_Jacob said.

_**Right. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! **_He whimpered and pawed at the ground.

I gleaned from their minds that it was Leah who trotted into view, her small gray body weaving through the underbrush. Well, small for one of _them_, anyway. _**Stop whining, Seth. You're such a baby.**_

Jacob growled at her, and she skipped back a step automatically.

_**What do you think you're doing, Leah?**_

She huffed a heavy sigh._**It's pretty obvious, isn't it? I'm joining your crappy little renegade pack. The vampires' guard dogs. **_She barked out a low, sarcastic laugh.

_**No, you're not. Turn around before I rip out one of your hamstrings.**_

_**Like you could catch me. **_She grinned and coiled her body for launch. _**Wanna race, O fearless leader?**_

Jacob took a deep breath, doing his best to hold back a frustrated scream. Why? What was going on here? _**Seth, go let the Cullens know that it's just your stupid sister, **_he thought the words as harshly as possible. _**I'll deal with this.**_

_**On it! **_Seth was only too happy to leave. He rushed toward the house.

Leah whined, and she leaned after him, the fur on her shoulders rising. _**You're just going to let him run off to the vampires **_**alone?**

_**I'm pretty sure he'd rather they took him out than spend another minute with you.**_

_**Shut up, Jacob. Oops, I'm sorry. I meant, shut up, "most high Alpha."**_

**_Why the _hell _are you here?_**

_**You think I'm just going to sit home while my little brother volunteers as a vampire chew toy?**_

_**Seth doesn't want or need your protection. In fact, no one wants you here.**_

_**Ooh, ouch, that's gonna leave a **_**huge **_**mark. Ha, **_she barked. _**Tell me who **_**does **_**want me around, and I'm outta here.**_

_**So this isn't about Seth at all, is it?**_

_**Of course it is. I'm just pointing out that being unwanted is not a first for me. Not really a motivating factor, if you know what I mean.**_

_**Did Sam send you? **_Jacob groused.

_**If I was here on Sam's errand, you wouldn't be able to hear me. My allegiance is no longer with him.**_

He listened carefully to the thoughts mixed in with the words, searching for any deception, any deceit on her part. But there was nothing. Her declaration was nothing but the truth. Unwilling, almost despairing truth.

_**You're loyal to **_**me **_**now? **_he asked with deep sarcasm. _**Uh-huh. Right.**_

Well, this was a switch. I "watched" with rapt attention. The drama going on out in the yard was _much_ more interesting than anything going on in the Cullen house right now. Apparently, a new pack was forming, or had already been formed, and anyone from the first pack could join? So this brother and sister pair decided, each for their own reasons, to join Jacob's "pack." Even if he had only intended it to be a pack of one. _So much for the best laid plans of wolves and...well, them._

_**My choices are limited. I'm working with the options I've got. Trust me, I'm not enjoying this any more than you are, **_Leah continued.

That wasn't quite true. There was an edgy kind of excitement in her mind. She was unhappy about this, but she was also riding some weird high. Jacob searched her mind, trying to understand, but she bristled, resenting the intrusion.

They were interrupted by Seth when he arrived at the house and thought to me, _**Another wolf is here, but it's just my dumb sister. I guess she's on our side now, so you don't have to worry about her**_. Leah whined anxiously.

I disappeared into the house after his message, to all appearances apathetic to what was going on. Seth pivoted and headed back out to the other two. Leah relaxed a little.

_**What's going on? **_Leah asked. _**Catch me up to speed.**_

_**There's no point. You're not staying.**_

**_Actually, Mr. Alpha, I am. Because since apparently I have to belong with _someone_—and don't think I haven't tried breaking off on my own, you know yourself how well _that _doesn't work—and I choose you._**

_**Leah, you don't like me. I don't like you.**_

_**Thank you, Captain Obvious. That doesn't matter to me. I'm staying with Seth. You don't like vampires. Don't you think that's a little conflict of interest right there?**_

_**You don't like vampires either.**_

**_But I _am _committed to this alliance. You aren't._**

_**I'll keep my distance from them. I can run patrols out here, just like Seth.**_

_**And I'm supposed to trust you with that? **_She drew herself up, trying to be as tall as me as shelooked him right in the eyes. _**I will not betray my pack.**_

Jacob raged, _**This isn't your pack! This isn't even **_**a **_**pack. This is just me, going off on my own! What is it with you Clearwaters? Why can't you leave me alone?**_

Seth, who was coming up behind them just then, whined. _**I've been helpful, haven't I, Jake?**_

**_You haven't made _too _much a nuisance of yourself, kid, but if you and Leah are a package deal...if the only way to get rid of her is for you to go home.… Well, can you blame me for wanting you gone?_**

_**Ugh, Leah, you ruin everything!**_

_**Yeah, I know, **_she told him, and the thought was loaded with bitterness and the heaviness of her despair.

Jacob felt the pain in those three little words, and man it was deep. But he didn't want to feel that; didn't want to feel bad for her. _Sure, the pack's rough on her, but she brings it all on herself with the bitterness that taints her every thought and makes being in her head a __nightmare._

What was their problem? Why were the two of them, particularly Jacob, willing to let go of the big picture on account of this girl? What was it about her? From the boys' attitude, you'd almost think she had betrayed them in some way, but some undercurrent told me that wasn't the case. Somehow, I got that deep down, where even they resisted acknowledging it, "the boys" were somehow responsible for her being the way she was. Wait, why was I suddenly thinking about this? What did I care about her? _Big picture, Edward! Bella's gonna die unless we figure out how to stop it. These people are just here to hold off her slayers._

Seth was feeling guilty, too. _**Jake… You're not really gonna send me away, are you? Leah's not so bad. Really. I mean, with her here, we can push the perimeter out farther. And this puts Sam down to seven. There's no way he's going to mount an attack that outnumbered. It's probably a good thing.…**_

_**You know I don't want to lead a pack, Seth.**_

_**So don't lead us, **_Leah offered.

He snorted. _**Sounds perfect to me. Run along home now.**_

_**Jake, **_Seth thought. _**I belong here. I **_**do **_**like vampires. Well, Cullens, anyway. They're people to me, and I'm going to protect them, 'cause that's what we're supposed to do.**_

_**Maybe you belong, kid, but your sister doesn't. And she's going to go wherever you are—**_

He stopped short, and quite suddenly there it was; the big reason Leah broke off and joined Jacob and Seth. Leah wasn't going anywhere.

_**Thought this was about Seth, **_Jacob thought sourly.

She flinched. _**Of course I'm here for Seth.**_

_**And to get away from Sam.**_

She growled. _**I don't have to explain myself to you. I just have to do what I'm told. I belong to **_**your **_**pack, Jacob. The end.**_

_Hahahahahaaaa! _ Now he was never going to get rid of her. As much as she disliked him, as much as she loathed us, as much as this whole situation pissed her off-none of that was _anything _compared to the euphoria she felt being free of Sam. That was the reason for the strange high she seemed to be riding; a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders, and she was still learning to _be_ without it all the time. Probably how I would feel if I ever got free of my bond with Carlisle. I actually sympathized with her on this. And envied her, the little bitch.

_**Look, Leah…**_Jacob began.

_**No, **_**you **_**look, Jacob. Stop arguing with me, because it's not going to do any good. I'll stay out of your way, okay? I'll do anything you want. Except go back to Sam's pack and be the pathetic ex-girlfriend he can't get away from. If you want me to leave, **_she sat back on her haunches and stared straight at him, _**you're**__** going to have to **_**make **_**me.**_

He snarled for a several long minutes. _**Seth, are you gonna get mad at me if I kill your sister? **__Wow_. If this was how they always operated, we wouldn't have anything to fear from these wolf boys, not for a long time.

Seth pretended to think about it for a minute. _**Well… yeah, probably.**_

Jacob sighed. _**Okay, then, Ms. Do-Anything-I-Want. Why don't you make yourself useful by telling us what you know? What happened after we left last night?**_

_**Lots of howling. But you probably heard that part. It was so loud that it took us a while to figure out that we couldn't hear either of you anymore. Sam was… **_Words failed her, but we all got a picture of Sam-as-wolf raging. What did those trees ever do to him? _**After that, it was clear pretty quick that we were going to have to rethink things. Sam was planning to talk to the other Elders first thing this morning. We were supposed to meet up and figure out a game plan. I could tell he wasn't going to mount another attack right away, though. Suicide at this point, with you and Seth AWOL and the bloodsuckers forewarned. I'm not sure what they'll do, but I wouldn't be wandering the forest alone if I was a leech. It's open season on vamps now.**_

_**You decided to skip the meeting this morning?**_

_**When we split up for patrols last night, I asked permission to go home, to tell my mother what had happened—**_

_**Crap! You told Mom? **_Seth growled.

_**Seth, hold off on the sibling stuff for a sec. Go on, Leah.**_

_**So once I was human, I took a minute to think things through. Well, actually, I took all night. I bet the others think I fell asleep. But the whole two-separate packs, two-separate-pack-minds thing gave me a lot to sift through. In the end, I weighed Seth's safety and the, er, other benefits against the idea of turning traitor and sniffing vampire stink for who knows how long. You know what I decided. I left a note for my mom. I expect we'll hear it when Sam finds out.…**_

Leah cocked an ear to the west.

_**Yeah, I expect we will.**_

_**So that's everything. What do we do now? **_she asked.

She and Seth both waited expectantly for Jacob's answer.

After several moments he replied, _**I guess we just keep an eye out for now. That's all we **_**can **_**do. You should probably take a nap, Leah.**_

_**You've had as much sleep as I have.**_

_**Thought you were going to do what you were told?**_

_**Right. That's going to get old, **_she grumbled, and then she yawned. _**Well, whatever. I don't care. **_

_**I'll run the border, Jake. I'm not tired at all. **_Seth was so glad Jacob hadn't sent them home, he was all but prancing with excitement.

_**Sure, sure. I'm going to go check in with the Cullens.**_

Seth took off along the new path worn into the damp earth. Leah looked after him thoughtfully.

_**Maybe a round or two before I crash.… Hey Seth, wanna see how many times I can lap you?**_

_**NO!**_

Barking out gleefully, Leah lunged into the woods after him.

Jacob growled. _So much for peace and quiet._

She laughed to herself, too jittery and hyper to get offended. I wondered how long the buzz from dodging the "Sam bullet" would last.

He changed into human form when he was a few yards from the lawn. He hadn't been planning to spend much time human here, so all he had was his ragged shorts. He pulled them on and started across the lawn.

The door opened before he got to the steps, and Carlisle met him at the door instead of me. We needed to distract him again, and Carlisle was better at that than any of us. Jacob faltered to a stop, unable to speak.

"Are you all right, Jacob?" Carlisle asked.

"Is Bella... All right?" he choked out.

"She's… much the same as last night. Did I startle you? I'm sorry. Edward said you were coming in your human form, and I came out to greet you, as he didn't want to leave her. She's awake." _And poor Edward didn't want to lose any time with her, because he didn't have much time left._ Carlisle didn't say the words out loud, but he might as well have.

Lethargy began to overcome Jacob, so he sat down on the porch steps, and slumped against the railing.

Carlisle took a seat on the same step, against the other railing.

"I didn't get a chance to thank you last night, Jacob. You don't know how much I appreciate your… compassion. I know your goal was to protect Bella, but I owe you the safety of the rest of my family as well. Edward told me what you had to do. . . ."

"Don't mention it," he muttered.

"If you prefer."

They sat in silence, and Jacob listened to us moving about the house. Emmett, Alice, and Jasper, speaking in low, serious voices upstairs. Esme humming tunelessly in another room. He could even point out Rosalie and me in Bella's room, and hear her uneven heartbeat, too.

Finally he couldn't take the silence anymore. "She's family to you?" he asked Carlisle.

"Yes. Bella is already a daughter to me. A beloved daughter."

"But you're going to let her die."

"I can imagine what you think of me for that," he finally said. "But I can't ignore her will. It wouldn't be right to make such a choice for her, to force her." _You are such a ham, _I thought._ I know what you do with and to your "children," you scum._

Even so, I had to admire the way Carlisle dispelled Jacob's anger. He was using Jacob's own words, just scrambled up a little, so it sounded like Jacob agreed with Carlisle. Not that I would ever tell Carlisle that.

"Do you think there's any chance she'll make it? I mean, as a vampire and all that. She told me about… about Esme," Jacob said.

"I'd say there's an even chance at this point," Carlisle answered quietly. "I've seen vampire venom work miracles, but there are conditions that even venom cannot overcome. Her heart is working too hard now; if it should fail… there won't be anything for me to do."

Bella's heartbeat throbbed and faltered, giving an agonizing emphasis to his words, which again, were clever applications of truth. Those were the best lies, after all.

"What is that thing doing to her?" he whispered. "She was so much worse last night. I saw…the tubes and all that. Through the window."

"The fetus isn't compatible with her body. Too strong, for one thing, but she could probably endure that for a while. The bigger problem is that it won't allow her to get the sustenance she needs. Her body is rejecting every form of nutrition. I'm trying to feed her intravenously, but she's just not absorbing it. Everything about her condition is accelerated. I'm watching her—and not just her, but the fetus as well—starve to death by the hour. I can't stop it and I can't slow it down. I can't figure out what it _wants_."

Jacob clenched his hands into fists. He hated the thing that was hurting her. It wasn't enough for the monster to beat her from the inside out. No, it was starving her, too. _Probably just looking for something to sink its teeth into; a throat to suck dry._

_**Is that it, you...whatever you are? **_I idly thought toward Bella's stomach. **_You need a vampire's source of sustenance? You thirsty? Want a little hot human blood running down your throat?_**

As soon as I finished that thought, I was seized with a desperate, pressing, insistent _thirst_. My throat burned; the intense need I felt harkened back to my days as a newborn vampire, when I thought I could never get enough life-sustaining blood. It hit me with such force I found myself hunched over, looking frantically for any source of blood. I would have drained a mouse if it had run by at that moment. My gaze darted back to Bella, then to her stomach. I immediately closed my mind off from everything, every thought of the people around me, and the urgent thirst subsided. I couldn't take my eyes off her. _My god. This creature...if it's capable of this level of influence, and it's barely even aware yet..._

"Edward, what are you staring at? Get away from her!" Rosalie snapped at me.

I backed off immediately, relieved to get away from this unexpected new power. "Sorry. Just...hungry, I guess. Not for Bella!" I corrected as Rosalie snarled, "I think I just need to hunt or something...I'm gonna go talk to Carlisle." I left the room. _We've got trouble, right here in River City, with a capital "T" and that rhymes with "C" and that stands for Creature to Watch Out For. _In the meantime, I sought out Carlisle where he was talking with Jacob about-chromosomes? _What the hell?_

"It might help to know what the count was—whether the fetus was closer to us or to her. To know what to expect." Then he shrugged. "And maybe it wouldn't help anything. I guess I just wish I had something to study, anything to do."

"Wonder what my chromosomes are like," Jacob muttered suddenly.

Carlisle coughed self-consciously. "You have twenty-four pairs, Jacob."

Jacob turned slowly to stare at him, raising his eyebrows.

Carlisle had the good grace to look embarrassed. "I was… curious. I took the liberty when I was treating you last June."

Jacob paused. "I guess that should piss me off. But I don't really care."

"I'm sorry. I should have asked."

"S'okay, Doc. You didn't mean any harm."

"No, I promise you that I did _not _mean you any harm. It's just that… I find your species fascinating. I suppose that the elements of vampiric nature have come to seem commonplace to me over the centuries. Your family's divergence from humanity is much more interesting. Magical, almost."

"Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo," he mumbled.

Carlisle laughed again.

I cleared my throat from the door.

Carlisle shifted, twisting to look expectantly at me.

I shut the door behind me.

"Carlisle," I murmured.

"What is it, Edward?"

"Perhaps we've been going about this the wrong way." _All right, Edward, make this feasible._ "I was listening to you and Jacob just now, and when you were speaking of what the… fetus wants, Jacob had an interesting thought. We haven't actually addressed that angle. We've been trying to get Bella what she needs. And her body is accepting it about as well as one of ours would. Perhaps we should address the needs of the…fetus first. Maybe if we can satisfy it, we'll be able to help her more effectively."

"I'm not following you, Edward," Carlisle said.

"Think about it, Carlisle. If that creature is more vampire than human, can't you guess what it craves-what it's not getting?" _**It's practically **_**all **_**vampire.**_

"Oh," he said in a surprised tone. "You think it is…thirsty?"

Rosalie hissed from inside, and suddenly she was at the door behind us. She wasn't suspicious anymore. Her face was all lit up, her eyes wide with excitement. "Of course," she muttered. "Carlisle, we have all that type O negative laid aside for Bella. It's a good idea."

"Hmm." Carlisle put his hand to his chin, lost in thought. "I wonder… And then, what would be the best way to administer. . . ."

Rosalie shook her head. "We don't have time to be creative. I'd say we should start with the traditional way."

"Wait a minute," Jacob whispered. "Just hold on. Are you...are you talking about making Bella drink _blood_?"

He watched Carlisle. He pursed his lips, speculating.

"That's just . . ." he couldn't find the word he wanted.

"Monstrous?" I suggested. "Repulsive?"

"Pretty much."

"But what if it helps her?" I whispered.

He shook his head angrily. "What are you gonna do, shove a tube down her throat?"

"I plan to ask her what she thinks. I just wanted to run it past Carlisle first."

Rosalie nodded. "If you tell her it might help the baby, she'll be willing to do anything. Even if we do have to feed them through a tube."

I realized then, when I heard how her voice got all lovey-dovey as she said the word baby, that Rosalie would be in line with anything that helped the little life-sucking monster. Was that what was going on, the mystery factor that was bonding the two of them? Was Rosalie after the kid? So to protect Bella, Rosalie would probably jam the tube down Bella's throat herself.

"Well, we don't have time to sit around discussing this," Rosalie said impatiently.

"What do you think, Carlisle? Can we try?" I asked.

Carlisle took a deep breath, and then he was on his feet. "We'll ask Bella."

Rosalie smiled smugly, sure that, if it were up to Bella, she would get her way.

We went into the house, Jacob trailing behind us. I wasn't sure why he came along. Just morbid curiosity, maybe. It _was_ rather like a horror movie. Monsters and blood all over the place.

_**Carlisle.**_

_**What is it?**_

_**You must know it's not that simple.**_

_**No, it's not.**_

_**So, is there really anything we can do?**_

_**...Maybe...**_

Bella lay flat on the hospital bed, her belly a mountain under the sheet. She looked like wax—colorless and sort of see-through. You'd think she was already dead, except for the tiny movement of her chest, her shallow breathing. And then her eyes, following the four of us with exhausted suspicion.

"What's going on?" Bella demanded in a scratchy whisper. Her waxy hand twitched up, like she was trying to protect her balloon-shaped stomach.

"Jacob had an idea that might help you," Carlisle said. "It won't be… pleasant, but—"

"But it will help the baby," Rosalie interrupted eagerly. "We've thought of a better way to feed him. Maybe."

Bella's eyelids fluttered. Then she coughed out a weak chuckle. "Not pleasant?" she whispered. "Gosh, that'll be such a change." She eyed the tube stuck into her arm and coughed again.

Rosalie chuckled with her.

The girl looked like she only had hours left, and she had to be in pain, but she was making jokes. So human. Trying to ease the tension, to keep her mind off the pain and terror she was going through. I've noticed humans tend to do that a lot. "Gallows humor," I think they call it.

I stepped around Rosalie, and took Bella's hand, the one that was not still protecting her swollen belly.

"Bella, love, we're going to ask you to do something monstrous," I said, using the same adjectives I'd used with Jacob. "Repulsive." I couldn't think of a good reason not to give it to her straight.

She took a shallow, fluttery breath. "How bad?"

Carlisle answered. "We think the fetus might have an appetite closer to ours than to yours. We think it's thirsty."

She blinked. "Oh. _Oh_."

"Your condition—both of your conditions—are deteriorating rapidly. We don't have time to waste, to come up with more palatable ways to do this. The fastest way to test the theory—"

"I've got to drink it," she whispered. She nodded slightly. She barely had enough energy for a little head bob. "I can do that. Practice for the future, right?" Her colorless lips stretched into a faint grin as she looked at me. I didn't smile back. I was becoming a little freaked out, being here in this room with a creature that, at present, mystified me. And scared me, a little.

Rosalie started tapping her toe impatiently. The sound was really irritating.

"So, who's going to catch me a grizzly bear?" Bella whispered.

Carlisle and I exchanged a quick glance. Rosalie stopped tapping.

"What?" Bella asked.

"It will be a more effective test if we don't cut corners, Bella," Carlisle said.

"_If _the fetus is craving blood," I explained, "it's not craving animal blood."

"It won't make a difference to you, Bella. Don't think about it," Rosalie encouraged.

Bella's eyes widened. "Who?" she breathed, and her gaze flickered to Jacob.

"I'm not here as a donor, Bells," he grumbled. "'Sides, it's human blood that thing's after, and I don't think mine applies—"

"We have blood on hand," Rosalie told her, talking over Jacob. "For you—just in case. Don't worry about anything at all. It's going to be fine. I have a good feeling about this, Bella. I think the baby will be so much better."

Bella's hand ran across her stomach.

"Well," she rasped, barely audible. "_I'm _starving, so I'll bet he is, too." Trying to make another joke. "Let's go for it. My first vampire act."

I didn't tell her what else we had to do to ensure that this would work; didn't tell Rosalie either, because I knew she would tell Bella and I didn't know how Bella would feel about it or what she would do then. Her eagerness to go through with this was unnerving, to say the least. What was it that was growing inside her? Was it something we could control? Or would it, one day...?

_**...thirsty...**_came a plaintive wail from Bella's stomach, and I closed my mind off briefly from it, idly wondering if the other vampires heard it, so strong was the emotion behind it. Jasper flinched, so I thought he must have, as well. While I was still cut off, I steeled myself for the mental and emotional assault my contact would bring, and then I reached out to it deliberately for the first time.

_**Patience, little one. There's something you must do first.**_

_**Thirsty NOW. **_It really wasn't so much a coherent thought as a really strong feeling translated through desperation and my own experience. Now that I knew to watch out for it, I was confident that I wouldn't get overwhelmed by this thing's thoughts or feelings again.

I briefly contemplated what I was about to do. I knew this would probably be exhausting; for me, for "baby," for Bella, and for Carlisle. It was also the only chance Bella had of coming out of this. At all. There was no way that Bella's stomach would let the blood pass through without breaking it down into its vital nutrients. Unfortunately, those were useless to the creature that was all but killing her by osmosis. It needed _blood_. Thick, life-giving, whole blood. And to get it, it would have to bypass the "middleman" organs and take it directly from her stomach.

First, it had to get there.

* * *

**Ok, so we're going a _teensy _bit off-canon in order to fill another plot-hole, because my plan to fill it not only fixes it but adds to the dysfunction level as well. We're getting to my favorite part, I'm getting so excited for this! Want to read what you guys think, always. ;)**


	10. The Calm

Carlisle, Rosalie, and I met in Bella's room. Carlisle turned to speak directly to Rosalie. "Rosalie, Edward and I are going to try to communicate with the...fetus. To find out if blood is what it really needs, and to make sure that this whole situation goes the best that it can."

"Talk to it? It can think?"

"It has communicated in a very primitive way with Edward already, so we're going to try a more in-depth approach this time."

Rosalie looked at him suspiciously for a moment. "Okay, but this better work! I won't forgive you if-"

"Yes, yes," Carlisle waved her off. "We understand. Now stand off a bit. This will probably be very delicate. Edward?"

I stepped forward and reached out to touch Bella's stomach while Carlisle placed a hand on my shoulder. My ability worked better with physical touch. For several minutes we stood there, getting a feel for one another; or in the creature's case, gradually becoming aware of our presence. Carlisle had to figure out how the thing was situated, and how and where it would have to move to be in position to make the most of Bella's new diet. Finally, a thought, if not in actual words.

_**?**_

_**Edward. I talked to you before.**_

_**?**_

_**That other is Carlisle. He will help.**_

_**? ?**_

_**You need to move. We will direct you.**_

_**? ?**_

_**So you can get the blood you crave.**_

_**! ? ! ? ! ?**_

_**Carlisle? Please tell me you're ready.**_

_**Yes, I am. Now, you, **_he addressed it, **_you need to move _this _way. _**I'm not sure how, but he managed to convey that it had to move closer to Bella's head-hard for anything to move when it was in that cramped space, but it was all we had.

Bella suddenly clutched her stomach, a look of panic on her face. "Something's happening...he's moving...I-I don't know..."

"It's ok," I reassured her. "This is just something that must be done for...him...to get what he needs."

_**Edward, concentrate! This is very delicate.**_

I focused back on the link between Carlisle and the _thing_. Carlisle's hands were tracing over Bella's abdomen, feeling out how it was situated and how it would consequently have to move. I didn't even know if we could do this; that thing would be working literally blind, and Carlisle had never done this before.

Bella gasped, and then groaned, as her organs were shifted in ways they weren't accustomed to.

_**Almost there...**_

_**Carlisle, is that her stomach?**_

_**Yes.**_

_**Good.**_

_**I think.**_

_**WHAT?**_

_**We'll know in a minute.**_

_**Carlisle!**_

_**Ok, now you need to chew your way through, but only enough to get at whatever's in there.**_

"Auuugh!" Bella started thrashing her head as this new pain almost drove her crazy.

"Hold her arms!" I yelled to Rosalie. She gave a murderous look, but complied.

_**Ick! **_It wasn't so much a thought as a feeling of disgust. Whatever it had found, it didn't find it tasty.

Carlisle's head snapped up. "Blood. Now." Carlisle and Rosalie were off in a flash, darting upstairs. I could hear them discussing up there.

"Carlisle, should we warm it up for her?"

"I don't think that would make much difference in its potency."

"But it tastes better that way..."

I stayed behind, holding Bella's hand. None of this had been going to plan; not my plan, anyway. Carlisle, though...seems he'd be getting all he wanted out of this. His little science experiment here, another new vamp under his control through my control of Bella, and once again, everything going his way. Quite suddenly a burning hatred for Carlisle flared up inside me. Oh, it had always been there, simmering, becoming stronger at times as he subverted my will, but never as strong as this.

I almost killed Bella right then. Her fragile neck...just give it a twist, a mere flick of the wrist, and...no. If I did that, what, then, would be the point of the last year and a half? Nothing. I glanced over at Jacob, having a little pity party of his own. He'd probably destroy me if I tried, anyway.

Rosalie darted downstairs after a second, flying through the room like a sharp breeze, stirring up the dead air. She stopped inside the kitchen, and I heard the creak of a cupboard door. She was rummaging for a _straw_, of all things.

"Not _clear_, Rosalie," I murmured. I rolled my eyes.

Bella looked curious, but I just shook my head at her.

Rosalie blew back through the room and disappeared again.

"Whose idea was this?" Bella whispered, her voice rough as she strained to make it loud enough for Jacob to hear, clearly forgetting that he could hear just fine where he was.

He moved closer, so that she wouldn't have to work so hard. "Don't blame me for this one. Your vampire was just picking snide comments out of my head."

She smiled a little. "I didn't expect to see you again."

"Yeah, me, either."

He felt awkward just standing there, because we had shoved all the furniture out of the way for the medical setup, but I wasn't about to offer him a chair. It faintly amused me that normally it wouldn't bother him much, except that he was exhausted now.

_So why don't you just leave, wolf-boy?_

"Edward told me what you had to do. I'm sorry," Bella said.

"S'okay. It was probably only a matter of time till I snapped over something Sam wanted me to do," he lied.

"And Seth," she whispered.

"He's actually happy to help."

"I hate causing you trouble."

He laughed once—more a bark than a laugh.

She breathed a faint sigh. "I guess that's nothing new, is it?"

"No, not really."

"You don't have to stay and watch this," she said, barely mouthing the words. He knew that it was probably a good idea, but also that if he did, with the way she looked right now, he could be missing the last fifteen minutes of her life.

"I don't really have anywhere else to go," he told her. "The wolf thing is a lot less appealing since Leah joined up."

"Leah?" she gasped.

"You didn't tell her?" he asked me.

I just shrugged. It's not like it was very exciting news to me, certainly not something worth sharing, considering the more important events that were going down.

Bella didn't take it so lightly. It looked like it was bad news to her. "Why?" she breathed.

He gave her the short version. "To keep an eye on Seth."

"But Leah hates us," she whispered.

_Us_. Nice. She was afraid, though.

"Leah's not going to bug anyone. She's in my pack"—he grimaced at the words—"so she follows my lead."

Again with the Leah-hate. Why was he obsessing about her so much? Normally I wouldn't care, but it seemed like it came out literally every time the topic of her came up.

Bella didn't look convinced.

"You're scared of _Leah_, but you're best buds with the psychopathic blonde?" There was a low hiss from the second floor. Clearly, she'd heard him.

Bella frowned. "Don't. Rose… understands."

"Yeah," he said. "She understands that you're gonna die and she doesn't care, s'long as she gets her mutant spawn out of the deal."

"Stop being a jerk, Jacob," she whispered.

Jacob tried to smile. "You say that like it's possible."

Bella tried not to smile back for a second, but she couldn't help it in the end; her chalky lips pulled up at the corners. And then Carlisle and the "psycho" in question were there. Carlisle had a white plastic cup in his hand—the kind with a lid and a bendy straw. I didn't know we had any of those here. Must be from Alice and Esme's secret stash, if they had one. You couldn't see what was in the cup at all, but we could all smell it.

Carlisle hesitated, the hand with the cup half-extended. Bella eyed it, looking scared again.

"We could try another method," Carlisle said quietly.

"No," Bella whispered. "No, I'll try this first. We don't have time. . . ."

At first I thought she'd finally gotten a clue and was worried about herself, but then her hand fluttered feebly against her stomach. Bella reached out and took the cup from him. Her hand shook a little, and I could hear the sloshing from inside. She tried to prop herself up on one elbow, but she could barely lift her head. Rosalie put her arm under Bella's shoulders, supporting her head, too, like you did with a newborn. Rosalie really was all about the babies lately. In that respect, I thought Jacob was right about her-she _had_ become a psychopath.

"Thanks," Bella whispered. Her eyes flickered around at us. Still aware enough to feel self-conscious. Still a self-centered bitch, I guess.

"Don't mind them," Rosalie murmured.

Bella lifted the cup to her face and sniffed at the end of the straw. She flinched, and then made a face.

"Bella, sweetheart, we can find an easier way," I said, holding my hand out for the cup.

"Plug your nose," Rosalie suggested. She glared at my hand like she might take a snap at it.

"No, that's not it. It's just that it—" Bella sucked in a deep breath. "It smells good," she admitted in a tiny voice.

Jacob loudly swallowed, fighting to keep the disgust off his face. _Oh, come on, show that disgust. Don't hold back, tell us what you really think, wolf boy!_

"That's a good thing," Rosalie told Bella eagerly. "That means we're on the right track. Give it a try."

Bella shoved the straw between her lips, squeezed her eyes shut, and wrinkled her nose. I could hear the blood slopping around in the cup again as her hand shook. She sipped at it for a second, and then moaned quietly with her eyes still closed.

_**Mmmmm...**_the creature all but purred when it tasted what it most desired.

Jacob and I stepped forward at the same time.

"Bella, love—" I began.

"I'm okay," she whispered. She opened her eyes and stared up at me. Her expression was… apologetic. Pleading. Scared. "It _tastes _good, too."

Jacob ground his teeth together.

"That's good," Rosalie repeated, still jazzed. "A good sign."

Bella sighed and put her lips to the straw again. She took a real pull this time. The action wasn't as weak as everything else about her. Like some instinct was taking over. Or something else.

_**More...**_

"How's your stomach? Do you feel nauseated?" Carlisle asked.

Bella shook her head. "No, I don't feel sick," she whispered. "There's a first, eh?"

Rosalie beamed. "Excellent."

"I think it's a bit early for that, Rose," Carlisle murmured.

Bella gulped another mouthful of blood, then chugged a few more ounces, staring past us toward the window. Probably pretending we weren't here. Or maybe just Jacob, I wasn't sure, and neither was she. No one else in this group would be disgusted by what she was doing, though.

Jacob imagined that all of us "leeches" were probably having a tough time not ripping the cup away from her. I just rolled my eyes at that. Yes, we were blood drinkers, but it's not like just any ol' blood would do. If it was merely for sustenance, we could just go knock off a blood bank or something. He didn't realize that it was all about the hunt. We didn't just feed off the fluid, it also the rush, the fear, terror, and the surge of power when our prey realized they were powerless against us.

I briefly imagined the reaction Jacob would have if I told him that. The thought made me chuckle. Bella's eyes flicked to me immediately, and she half-smiled.

"Something funny?" she breathed.

"Jacob," I answered.

She looked over with another weary smile. "Jake's a crack-up," she agreed.

"Badam bum _tch_!" he mumbled in weak rim-shot impression.

She smiled again, and then took another swig from the cup. Jacob flinched when the straw pulled at empty air, making a loud sucking sound.

"I did it," she said, sounding pleased. Her voice was clearer—rough, but not a whisper for the first time today. "If I keep this down, Carlisle, will you take the needles out of me?"

"It might be better to keep them in," he said. "They weren't doing that much good before because the...fetus was feeding off of you. Now we need to get some nutrients in you."

Rosalie patted Bella's forehead, and they exchanged a hopeful glance. And anyone could see it—the cup full of human blood had made an immediate difference. Her color was returning; there was a tiny hint of pink in her waxy cheeks. Already she didn't seem to need Rosalie's support so much anymore. Her breathing was easier, and I would swear her heartbeat was stronger, more even. Everything accelerated.

"Would you like more?" Rosalie pressed.

Bella's shoulders slumped.

I flashed a glare at Rosalie before speaking to Bella. "You don't have to drink more right away."

_**More...**_

"Yeah, I know. But… I _want _to," she admitted glumly.

Rosalie pulled her thin, sharp fingers through Bella's lank hair. "You don't need to be embarrassed about that, Bella. Your body has cravings. We all understand that." Her tone was soothing at first, but then she added harshly, "Anyone who _doesn't_ understand shouldn't be here."

Meant for Jacob, obviously, but he had more grit than that. He seemed genuinely glad that Bella felt better. Sure, the means grossed him out, but he had the presence of mind not to say anything.

Carlisle took the cup from Bella's hand. "I'll be right back."

Bella stared at Jacob while he disappeared.

"Jake, you look awful," she croaked.

"Look who's talking."

"Seriously—when's the last time you slept?"

He thought about that for a second. "Huh. I'm not actually sure."

"Aw, Jake. Now I'm messing with your health, too. Don't be stupid."

He gritted his teeth. _You're allowed to kill yourself for a monster, but I'm not allowed to miss a few nights' sleep to watch you do it?_

Classy.

"Get some rest, please," she went on. "There're a few beds upstairs—you're welcome to any of them."

The look on Rosalie's face made it clear that he wasn't. I felt a surge of anger at Bella's presumptuousness. Welcome to the beds upstairs? He certainly wasn't welcome to _mine_.

"Thanks, Bells, but I'd rather sleep on the ground. Away from the stench, you know."

She grimaced. "Right."

Carlisle was back then, and Bella reached out for the blood, absentminded, like she was thinking of something else. With the same distracted expression, she started sucking it down. She really was looking better. She pulled herself forward, being careful of the tubes, and scooted into a sitting position. Rosalie hovered, her hands ready to catch Bella if she sagged, but Bella didn't need her. Taking deep breaths in between swallows, Bella finished the second cup quickly.

_**Mmmmmm...**_As near as I could tell, I was the only one who could hear it. It seemed like Jasper could feel it, though.

"How do you feel now?" Carlisle asked.

"Not sick. Sort of hungry… only I'm not sure if I'm hungry or _thirsty_, you know?"

"Carlisle, just look at her," Rosalie murmured, so smug she should have canary feathers on her lips. "This is obviously what her body wants. She should drink more."

"She's still human, Rosalie. She needs food, too. Let's give her a little while to see how this affects her, and then maybe we can try some food again. Does anything sound particularly good to you, Bella?"

"Eggs," she said immediately.

Jacob suddenly wavered on his feet; he really was exhausted.

"Jacob," I murmured. "You really should sleep. You'd probably be more comfortable outside. Don't worry about anything. I promise I'll find you if there's a need."

"Sure, sure," he mumbled. Now that it appeared Bella had a few more hours, he would escape. Go curl up under a tree somewhere.… Far enough away that the smell couldn't reach him. He nodded and then put his hand on Bella's.

"Feel better," he said.

"Thanks, Jacob." She turned her hand over and squeezed his.

"Get her a blanket or something," he muttered as he turned for the door. Before he made it, two howls pierced the still morning air. Jacob recognized the urgency of the tone. No misunderstanding this time. "Dammit," he snarled, and threw himself through the door. He darted off the porch, transforming in midair. There was a sharp tearing sound as his shorts shredded. _Crap._

I followed him as long as I was able.

_**What is it? **_He shouted in his head.

_**Incoming, **_Seth answered. _**At least three.**_

_**Did they split up?**_

_**I'm running the line back to Seth at the speed of light, **_Leah promised. I could feel the air huffing through her lungs as she pushed herself to an incredible velocity. The forest whipped around her. _**So far, no other point of attack.**_

**_Seth, do _not _challenge them. Wait for me._**

**_They're slowing. Ugh—it's so _off _not being able to hear them. I think…_**

_**What?**_

_**I think they've stopped.**_

_**Waiting for the rest of the pack?**_

_**Shh. Feel that?**_

_**Someone's phasing?**_

_**Feels like it, **_Seth agreed.

Leah flew into the small open space where Seth waited. She raked her claws into the dirt, spinning out like a race car. _**Got your back, bro.**_

_**They're coming, **_Seth said nervously. _**Slow. Walking.**_

_**Almost there, **_Jacob said. He tried to move quickly, like Leah. He felt horrible being separated from Seth and Leah with potential danger closer to them than him.

_**Look who's getting all paternal, **_Leah thought wryly.

_**Head in the game, Leah.**_

_**Four, **_Seth decided. Kid had good ears. _**Three wolves, one man.**_

He entered the little clearing then, moving immediately to the point. I was almost at my limit now; the only reason I could still hear Jacob, I think, was because he was in wolf form, and that boosted his telepathic abilities. Seth sighed with relief and then straightened up, already in place at his right shoulder. Leah fell in on his left with a little less enthusiasm.

_**So now I rank under Seth, **_she grumbled to herself.

_**First come, first served, **_Seth thought smugly. _**'Sides, you were never an Alpha's Third before. Still an upgrade.**_

_**Under my baby brother is **_**not****_ an upgrade._**

_**Shh! **_Jacob ordered. _**I don't care where you stand. Shut up and get ready.**_

They came into view a few seconds later, walking, as Seth had thought. Jared in the front, human, hands up. Paul and Quil and Collin on four legs behind him. There was no aggression in their postures. They hung back behind Jared, ears up, alert but calm. I got the impression that that was a weird choice to make.

_**A diversion? **_Leah thought.

Were Sam, Embry, and Brady making a move alone? That didn't seem likely.

_**Want me to check? I can run the line and be back in two minutes.**_

_**Should I warn the Cullens? **_Seth wondered.

_**What if the point was to divide us?**_ Jacob asked. _**The Cullens know something's up. They're ready.**_

_**Sam wouldn't be so stupid…**__, _Leah whispered, fear jagged in her mind. She was imagining Sam attacking the Cullens with only the two others beside him.

_**No, he wouldn't, **_Jacob assured her, though he felt a little sick at the image in her head, too.

All the while, Jared and the three wolves stared at them, waiting. Their expressions were blank, unreadable.

Jared cleared his throat, and then he nodded to Jacob. "White flag of truce, Jake. We're here to talk."

_**Think it's true?**_ Seth asked.

_**Makes sense, but…**_

_**Yeah**__, _Leah agreed. _**But**__._

They didn't relax.

Jared frowned. "It would be easier to talk if I could hear you, too."

Jacob stared him down. He wasn't going to phase back until he felt better about this situation. Until it made sense. Why Collin? That was the part that had him most worried.

"Okay. I guess I'll just talk, then," Jared said. "Jake, we want you to come back."

Quil let out a soft whine behind him, effectively seconding the statement.

"You've torn our family apart. It's not meant to be this way. We know that you feel… strongly about the situation with the Cullens. We know that's a problem. But this is an overreaction."

Seth growled. _**Overreaction? And attacking our allies without warning **_**isn't**_**?**_

_**Seth, you ever heard of a poker face? Cool it.**_

_**Sorry.**_

Jared's eyes flickered to Seth and back to me. "Sam is willing to take this slowly, Jacob. He's calmed down, talked to the other Elders. They've decided that immediate action is in no one's best interest at this point."

_**Translation: They've already lost the element of surprise,**_Leah thought.

"Billy and Sue agree with you, Jacob, that we can wait for Bella… to be separated from the problem. Killing her is not something any of us feel comfortable with."

He couldn't hold back a small snarl of his own. _So they didn't quite __feel comfortable __with murder, huh?_

Jared raised his hands again. "Easy, Jake. You know what I mean. The point is, we're going to wait and reassess the situation. Decide later if there's a problem with the… thing."

_**Ha**__, _Leah thought. _**What a load.**_

_**You don't buy it?**_

**_I know what they're thinking, Jake. What _Sam's _thinking. They're betting on Bella dying anyway. And then they figure you'll be so mad…_**

_**That I'll lead the attack myself.**_Jacobpressedhis ears against his skull. I felt a snarl begin on my lips as well. What Leah was guessing sounded pretty spot-on. And very possible, too. When… if that thing killed Bella, it was going to be easy for him to forget how he felt about our family right now. We would look like enemies, like no more than bloodsucking leeches, all over again.

_**I'll remind you**__, _Seth whispered.

_**I know you will, kid. Question is whether I'll listen to you.**_

"Jake?" Jared asked.

He huffed a sigh.

**_Leah, make a circuit—just to be sure. I'm going to have to talk to him, and I __want to be _positive _there isn't anything else going on while I'm phased._**

_**Give me a break, Jacob. You can phase in front of me. Despite my best efforts,**_

_**I've seen you naked before—doesn't do much for me, so no worries. **_Oh, burn! I was starting to like this chick.

_**I'm not trying to protect the innocence of your eyes, I'm trying to protect our backs. Get out of here.**_

Leah snorted once and then launched herself into the forest. Her claws cut into the soil, pushing her faster. Jared and the others were staring at the place where she'd disappeared into the brush with wary expressions.

"Where's she going?" Jared asked.

Jacob ignored him, shifting into his human form. After that, I couldn't sense what was going on. My interests were divided, now. I wanted to go closer to their meeting place to hear what was going on, but I felt almost obligated to stay at the house and monitor the condition of this...whatever it was.

_**Mmmmm...**_

"Baby" was sated for the moment, it seemed. Everyone in the house breathed a huge sigh of relief. I sensed that it was drifting off into contented sleep. As soon as it did, it seemed like most everyone suddenly woke from some kind of trance. Carlisle, Emmett and Jasper went hunting, after Rosalie extracted a promise from Emmett to bring some back, and the house went back to "bustling."

I made Bella some eggs, which she ate with gusto, and actually managed to keep down this time. She drifted off to sleep only minutes later.

Alice suddenly appeared in the doorway, and when she looked at Bella's stomach, she narrowed her eyes. _I'm onto you, little monster. Don't think you can get us all, because I, at least, am better than you. _Then she walked away.

What was _that_ all about?

Just then I realized I could hear Jacob's thoughts again. He must have turned wolfy again.

Leah snickering, _**Thought you were going to make out with him,**_was the first thing I heard when my sense came back. Clearly I had missed some really good melodrama worthy of a soap opera while Jacob was human. Bummer.

Jacob ignored her, instead asking, _**Was that okay?**_ _**Did I say anything you didn't want me to? Did I **_**not **_**say something I should have?**_

_**You did great, Jake!**_ Seth encouraged.

_**You could have hit Jared,**_ Leah thought. _**I wouldn't have minded that.**_

_**I guess we know why Embry wasn't allowed to come,**_ Seth thought.

_**Not allowed?**_

_**Jake, did you see Quil? He's pretty torn up, right? I'd put ten to one that Embry's even more upset. And Embry doesn't have a Claire. There's no way Quil can just pick up and walk away from La Push. Embry might. So Sam's not going to take any chances on him getting convinced to jump ship. He doesn't want our pack any bigger than it is now.**_

_**Really? You think? I doubt Embry would mind shredding some Cullens.**_

_**But he's your best friend, Jake. He and Quil would rather stand behind you than face you in a fight.**_

_**Well, I'm glad Sam kept him home, then. This pack is big enough. **_He sighed. _**Okay, then. So we're good, for now. Seth, you mind keeping an eye on things for a while? Leah and I both need to crash. This **_**felt **_**on the level, but who knows? Maybe it was a distraction.**_

I would have admired his new-found paranoia, if it wasn't rooted in his mistrust of Sam. It was still an advantage, sure, but nothing admirable.

_**No problem! **_Seth was only too eager to do whatever he could. _**You want me to explain to the Cullens? They're probably still kinda tense.**_

_**I got it. I want to check things out anyway.**_

They caught the whir of images from his fried brain.

Seth whimpered in surprise. _**Ew**_.

Leah whipped her head back and forth like she was trying to shake the image out of her mind. _**That is easily the freakin' grossest thing I've heard in my life. Yuck. If there was anything in my stomach, it would be coming back.**_

_**They **_**are **_**vampires, I guess, **_Seth allowed after a minute, compensating for Leah's reaction. _**I mean, it makes sense. Kinda. And if it helps Bella, it's a good thing, right?**_

Both Leah and Jacob stared at him.

_**What?**_

_**Mom dropped him a lot when he was a baby, **_Leah said.

_**On his head, apparently.**_

_**He used to gnaw on the crib bars, too.**_

_**Lead paint?**_

_**Looks like it,**_ she thought.

Seth snorted. _**Funny. Why don't you two shut up and sleep?**_

The day finally ended, the Cullen house was peaceful for a time, and we had our Bark Brigade keeping watch outside.

All was calm, for a little while.


	11. First Kick

"Edward," Esme called from upstairs. "Do you think Emmett is about Jacob's size?"

I shook my head a little in confusion; that was certainly a non sequitor. "What? What kind of question is that?"

"Just answer the question; do you think they're about the same size?"

"Um, I guess, though Jacob is definitely taller than he is."

"Oh, well, that should be no problem; Emmett likes his clothes a little on the big side, anyway."

"What are you doing?" I asked as I walked into Emmett's room. Esme was rifling through his clothing, alternately choosing or rejecting different articles of clothing, as she picked them up or set them down again. This was _weird_. I'd never seen her so animated before, and she was being unusually...industrious.

"I thought it would nice to make sure Jacob has clothes when he comes back; I saw the remnants of his shorts on the lawn."

That _was _pretty funny, but I still stared at her in honest confusion for a few seconds. "Why?"

"He's doing so much for us lately, I want to do something for him in return."

"Ah." That sounded more like the Esme I knew. Simple, nice, and not entirely on the ball with the current situation; as if she'd forgotten who and what Jacob was.

"Ah, here!" She held up a shirt and pants. "These will do nicely. Edward, will you set these out on the porch for me?"

"Um, sure." I took them and hung them over the porch railing. It was always easier to just go along with Esme. Otherwise she would get frantic and emotional, and Carlisle would notice, and come down on the offender. Or come _in_ the offender, whichever fancied him at the time. I shuddered at that thought. Anyway, I was willing enough, though not happy, to oblige Esme's strange whims.

"And come back when you've done that; there's something else I want to talk about too."

Great. It seemed we Cullens were adopting some new pets.

Jacob came back to an empty yard. _Everything's cool, _he thought tiredly. He quickly caught the small change in the now-familiar scene: the stack of light-colored fabric on the bottom step of the porch. He loped over to investigate. Holding his breath, because our "vampire smell" stuck to the fabric, he nudged the stack with his nose. _Huh. Someone laid out clothes for me._ _Well. That's… nice...and weird._

He took the clothes gingerly between his teeth and carried them back to the trees, just in case this was some joke by "the blond psychopath" and it was a bunch of girls' stuff. In the cover of the trees, he dropped the stinking pile and shifted back to human. They were definitely guy's clothes, he saw—tan pants and a white button-down shirt. He wound up rolling the cuffs up on the shirtsleeves, but there wasn't much he could do about the pants.

He walked slowly up the porch steps but hesitated when he got to the door, wondering if he should knock. _Stupid, when they know I'm here_. Yep, pretty dumb. He wondered briefly why no one told him either to _come in _or _get lost_. Well, I would certainly be happy to oblige the second option. Then he shrugged and let himself in, only to encounter more changes. The room had shifted back to normal—almost—in the last twenty minutes. The big flat-screen was on, low volume, showing some chick flick that no one seemed to be watching. Carlisle and Esme stood by the back windows, which were open to the river again. Alice, Jasper, and Emmett were out of sight, but could be heard murmuring upstairs. Bella was on the couch like yesterday, with just one tube still hooked into her, and an IV hanging behind the back of the sofa.

She was wrapped up like a burrito in a couple of thick quilts, and Rosalie was cross-legged on the ground by her head, always on guard. That was getting tiresome now; it had been irritating for quite some time.

I sat at the other end of the couch with Bella's wrapped feet in my lap. I looked up when Jacob came in and smiled at him—just a little twitch of the mouth.

Bella didn't hear him. She only glanced up when I did, and then she smiled, too, with real energy, her whole face lighting up. I couldn't remember the last time she'd looked so excited to see him. Still as much a cock-tease as ever, I guess.

"They just wanted to talk," Jacob mumbled, voice dragging with exhaustion. "No attack on the horizon."

"Yes," I answered. "I heard most of it." I just didn't want to hear any more of his rambling right now.

That woke him up a little. They'd been a good three miles out, after all. "How?"

"I'm hearing you more clearly—it's a matter of familiarity and concentration. Also, your thoughts are slightly easier to pick up when you're in your wolf form. So I caught most of what passed out there."

"Oh." It bugged him a little, but he shrugged it off. "Good. I hate repeating myself."

"I'd tell you to go get some sleep," Bella said, "but my guess is that you're going to pass out on the floor in about six seconds, so there's probably no point."

He trudged for the door, counting off the seconds as he walked. "One Mississippi… two Mississippi . . ."

"Where's the fire, mutt?" Rosalie muttered.

"You know how you drown a blonde, Rosalie?" he asked without stopping or turning to look at her. "Glue a mirror to the bottom of a pool."

I chuckled at that; he was supposed to hate us beyond anything else, and that was the best he could come up with? A lame blonde joke?

He pulled the door shut.

"Wow. Most people stopped telling blonde jokes after the third grade," Rosalie called after him.

After he was striding across the lawn, I remembered something I'd forgotten to say to him; well, something Esme wanted me to say, actually. I got up to go after Jacob, but Bella stopped me.

"Where are you going?"

"There was something I forgot to say to him."

"Let Jacob sleep—it can wait."

Jacob, who had heard our exchange, echoed, _Yes, _please_, let Jacob sleep._

Nah, he was amusing when he was sleep-deprived. "It will only take a moment." I walked up behind him, and he turned slowly. "Jeez, what _now_?"

"I'm sorry," I said.

**_What's on your mind, mind reader?_**

"When you were speaking to Sam's delegates earlier," I murmured, "I was giving a play-by-play for Carlisle and Esme and the rest. They were concerned—"

"Look, we're not dropping our guard. You don't have to believe Sam like we do. We're keeping our eyes open regardless."

"No, no, Jacob. Not about that. We trust your judgment. Rather, Esme was troubled by the hardships this is putting your pack through. She asked me to speak to you privately about it." This was the other part of her plans; get all buddy-buddy with our "bodyguards" here. Offer them food, clothing, and shelter. To top it off, she asked _me_ to tell Jacob about it. If it were anyone else, I'd think they were getting some dark amusement out of my irritation, but this was _Esme_; everyone knew she wasn't smart enough for that.

One word took him off guard. "Hardships?"

"The _homeless _part, particularly. She's very upset that you are all so… bereft."

He snorted. "We're tough. Tell her not to worry."

"She'd still like to do what she can. I got the impression that Leah prefers not to eat in her wolf form?"

"And?"

"Well, we do have normal human food here, Jacob. Keeping up appearances, and, of course, for Bella. Leah is welcome to anything she'd like. All of you are."

"I'll pass that along."

"Uh, so Leah hates us."

"Yeah...So?"

"So try to pass it along in such a way as to make her consider it, if you don't mind," I said irritably.

"I'll do what I can."

"And then there's the matter of clothes."

He glanced down at the ones he was wearing. "Oh yeah. Thanks."

"Well, we're easily able to help out with any needs there. We've got piles of clothes, and we think that Leah is fairly close to Esme's size. . . ."

"Not sure how she'll feel about bloodsucker castoffs. She's not as practical as I am."

"I trust that you can present the offer in the best possible light. As well as the offer for any other physical object you might need, or transportation, or anything else at all. And showers, too," I threw in, "since you prefer to sleep outdoors. Please… don't consider yourselves without the benefits of a...house." Esme had said I should say to make themselves at home, but there was no way I would go that far.

He stared at me for a second, blinking sleepily. "That's, er, nice of you. Tell Esme we appreciate the, uh, thought. But the perimeter cuts through the river in a few places, so we stay pretty clean, thanks."

"If you would pass the offer on, regardless."

"Sure, sure."

"Thank you."

He turned away from me, and suddenly I heard it again-

_**More room!**_

-and Bella screamed from the house.

I rushed inside, expecting the worst now. What had that little monster done _this_ time?

Bella was panting, curled over the bulge in the center of her body. Rosalie held her while Edward, Carlisle, Esme and then I all hovered. A flicker of motion caught my eye; Alice was at the top of the stairs, staring down into the room with her hands pressed to her temples. She refused to enter, though she wouldn't tell me why, and I couldn't glean it from her thoughts just now.

"Give me a second, Carlisle," Bella panted.

"Bella," the doctor said anxiously, "I heard something crack. I need to take a look."

"Pretty sure"—pant—"it was a rib. Ow. Yep. Right here." She pointed to her left side, careful not to touch.

It was breaking her _bones _now. _**Stop struggling! **_I ordered.

_**Tight. Want more room.**_

_**You want to be born? You want to keep existing?**_

_**? ?**_

_**Keep it up, and you'll destroy your shelter, which will kill you.**_

_**. . . .**_

"I need to take an X-ray. There might be splinters. We don't want it to puncture anything," Carlisle was saying.

Bella took a deep breath. "Okay."

Rosalie lifted Bella carefully. I leaned forward to take her, but Rosalie bared her teeth at me and growled, "I've already got her."

What was with her new predatory mama-bear stance, anyway? It was really starting to freak me the hell out.

So Bella was stronger now, but _the thing_ was, too. You couldn't starve one without starving the other, and apparently healing worked just the same. Rosalie carried Bella swiftly up the big staircase with Carlisle and me right on her heels. I caught a glimpse of Jacob in the doorway as we went by, but he wasn't in any position to be a help or hindrance, so I ignored him.

When we got up there, there was really nothing I could do except _be there_, and that wasn't exciting, but I couldn't leave, so I mentally cast about the house to find an interesting situation. I found it in Alice sidling up to Jacob in the other room.

"Do you want a pillow?" Alice asked him.

"No," he mumbled.

"That doesn't look comfortable," she observed.

"S'not."

"Why don't you move, then?"

"Tired. Why aren't you upstairs with the rest of them?" he shot back.

"Headache," she answered.

He turned to look at her. "Vampires get headaches?"

"Not the normal ones."

He snorted. "So how come you're never with Bella anymore?" he asked, making the question an accusation. "Thought you two were like this." He crossed two of his fingers.

"Like I said"—she curled up on the tile a few feet from him, wrapping her arms around her knees—"headache."

"Bella's giving you a headache?"

"Yes."

Jacob frowned.

"Not Bella, really," she amended. "The…fetus."

Ah, someone else who felt like Jacob and I did. It was pretty easy to recognize.

"I can see it," she told me, though she might have been talking to herself. For all she knew, she was now alone. "It's pretty vague, really, but what I can see, I don't like." She was quiet for a second, and then she added, "I have to admit, it's a relief having you close by—in spite of the wet-dog smell. Everything goes away. Like having my eyes closed. It numbs the headache."

"Happy to be of service, ma'am," he mumbled.

"You don't mind if I sit here by you, do you?" she asked.

"Guess not. Stinks anyway."

"Thanks," she said. "This is the best thing for it, I guess, since I can't take aspirin."

"Could you keep it down? Sleeping, here."

She didn't respond, immediately lapsing into silence. Jacob was out in seconds.

Alice waited a couple minutes, then decided to play with Jacob, just to see how far gone he really was. First she ruffled his hair; no response. Then she started tracing her finger along different limbs, which made him twitch, but only in an automatic reaction. Her final move almost made my jaw drop; I only just barely remembered that I was in a different room, with company that would _not _be amused. She actually stuck her hand down the front of his pants and grabbed his dick! I barely managed to keep my expression neutral, and not sure I succeeded at that, because Carlisle gave me a weird look at that moment. Even better (or worse, depending on your point of view), Jacob didn't wake up! Alice was all but jerking him off, and he remained unconscious through all of it.

_**Careful, Alice, **_I sent to her, mentally chuckling. **_You don't want that hand to get bitten off._**

_**You know what you are? A spoilsport. I'll watch him really closely; he'll never know.**_

_**Damn right he'll never know; he'd kill us without a second thought.**_

Then she was straddling his lap, Jacob was dreaming something about water, and I got my mind out of there as quick as I could. I did _not_ want any kind of images in my head from _that_.

Instead, I focused on the times tables. It was seriously boring enough around here for that. I had made it to 127 times 54 when I heard a familiar mental voice outside.

_**Hey, where is everybody? I'm hungry!**_

I gratefully went downstairs to meet him while Carlisle and Rosalie helped Bella.

"Hey, squirt, how ya doin'?" I asked when I met him at the door, leaning against the doorjamb.

His face lit up. "Edward! I finished my patrol not too long ago. Jacob said something about food here?" he asked hopefully.

I smiled at his enthusiasm. "Sure, if you like eggs. We have lots of eggs," I said somewhat ruefully.

"I _do_ like eggs." I swore I could see the hunger in his eyes.

"Well, come on then." I led the way into the kitchen. "How do you like your eggs?" I asked as Seth climbed up on one of the stools around the central counter. Seth's little man-crush on me was endearing in a way, and indulging him now helped to take my mind off other things for a while.

"In copious amounts!" he announced as he folded his arms and laid them on the counter, resting his chin on top of them.

I chuckled. "Okay, what kind should I make first?"

"Scrambled."

It became a kind of childish game. He would yell out what kind of eggs to make, I would make them, and before I was finished cooking he was usually finished eating his previous "order." It was kind of fun, certainly more entertaining than anything else going on around the house. The game his a snag, though, when he ask ed for, "Eggs Benedict!"

I put down my spatula and looked him straight in the eye. "Absolutely not."

"What? Why not?"

"That takes a long time to make, it's complicated, and you'll just wolf it down in ten seconds anyway." I stuck my nose in the air. "There's no way you would adequately appreciate it."

"Pleeeease?" He folded his hands and gave me his best puppy-dog eyes.

"Wellllll...no."

"Ugh, fine," he pouted. Then, "Sunny-side up!"

I snatched the spatula up again and winked at him. "Comin' up!"

Eventually I had to move on to pancakes, french toast and other things-the kid just wouldn't stop eating! We kept it up until Jacob awoke. I heard him groan as he sat up and stretched.

"About time," Rosalie mumbled from not too far away. "The chainsaw impersonation was getting a little tired."

He rolled over and discovered that someone had stuffed a wide feather pillow under hisface.

_**That you, Alice? **_I asked.

_**Just making up for earlier...indiscretions. **_Right. "Indiscretions." Was THAT what all the cool kids were calling it these days?

The scene had changed for him yet again. Bella was sitting up in the middle of the sofa, and the IV was gone. Rosalie sat at her feet, her head resting against Bella's knees. By then I had come into the room and was seated on one side of her, holding her hand. Alice was on the floor, too, like Rosalie.

"Hey, Jake's coming around!" Seth crowed. He was sitting on Bella's other side, his arm slung carelessly over her shoulders, an overflowing plate of food on his lap.

_What the hell?_

"He came to find you," I said while he got to his feet. "And, uh, Esme convinced him to stay for breakfast."

Seth took in Jacob's expression, and he hurried to explain. "Yeah, Jake—I was just checking to see if you were okay 'cause you didn't ever phase back. Leah got worried. I _told _her you probably just crashed human, but you know how she is. Anyway, they had all this food and, dang,"—he turned to me—"man, you can _cook_."

"Thank you," I murmured.

Jacob inhaled slowly, obviously trying to keep his temper. He didn't take his eyes off Seth's arm.

"Bella got cold," I said quietly.

Seth heard my comment, took one look at Jacob's face, and suddenly decided he needed both hands to eat with. He took his arm off Bella and dug in. Jacob walked over to stand a few feet from the couch.

"Leah running patrol?" he asked Seth.

"Yeah," he said as he chewed. Seth had new clothes on, too. "She's on it. No worries. She'll howl if there's anything. We traded off around midnight. I ran twelve hours." He was proud of that, and it showed in his tone.

"Midnight? Wait a minute; what time is it now?"

"'Bout dawn." He glanced toward the window, checking.

_Well, __damn__._ "Crap. Sorry about that, Seth. Really. You shoulda kicked me awake."

"Naw, man, you needed some serious sleep. You haven't taken a break since when? Night before your last patrol for Sam? Like forty hours? Fifty? You're not a machine, Jake. 'Sides, you didn't miss anything at all."

_Nothing at all?_ He glanced quickly at Bella. Her color was back to the way he remembered. Pale, but with the rose undertone. Her lips were pink again. Even her hair looked better—shinier. She saw him appraising and gave him a grin.

"How's the rib?" he asked.

"Taped up nice and tight. I don't even feel it."

What a liar. Jacob thought so too, evidenced by him rolling his eyes. "What's for breakfast?" he asked, a little sarcastic. "O negative or AB positive?"

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Omelets," she said, but her eyes darted down, and then Jacob saw that her cup of blood was wedged between her leg and mine.

"Go get some breakfast, Jake," Seth said. "There's a bunch in the kitchen. You've got to be empty."

He examined the food in Seth's lap. Half a cheese omelet and the last quarter of a giant- cinnamon roll still remained. Jacob's stomach growled in response, but he tried to ignore it.

"What's Leah having for breakfast?" he asked Seth critically.

"Hey, I took food to her before I ate _anything_," he defended himself. "She said she'd rather eat roadkill, but I bet she caves. These cinnamon rolls… " He rolled his eyes in pleasure.

"I'll go hunt with her, then."

Seth sighed as Jacob turned to leave.

"A moment, Jacob?" Carlisle asked.

"Yeah?"

Carlisle approached me while Esme drifted off toward the other room. He stopped a few feet away, just a little bit farther away than the normal space between two humans having a conversation. "Speaking of hunting," he began in a somber tone. "That's going to be an issue for my family. I understand that our previous truce is inoperative at the moment, so I wanted your advice. Will Sam be hunting for us outside of the perimeter you've created? We don't want to take a chance with hurting any of your family—or losing any of ours. If you were in our shoes, how would you proceed?"

He thought about that for a second. "It's a risk," he said finally. "Sam's calmed down some, but I'm pretty sure that in his head, the treaty is void. As long as he thinks the tribe, or any other human, is in real danger, he's not going to ask questions first, if you know what I mean. But, with all that, his priority is going to be La Push. There really aren't enough of them to keep a decent watch on the people while putting out hunting parties big enough to do much damage. I'd bet he's keeping it close to home."

Carlisle nodded thoughtfully.

"So I guess I'd say, go out together, just in case. And probably you should go in the day, 'cause we'd be expecting night. Traditional vampire stuff. You're fast—go over the mountains and hunt far enough away that there's no chance he'd send anyone that far from home."

"And leave Bella behind, unprotected?"

He snorted. "What are we, chopped liver?"

Carlisle laughed, and then his face turned serious again. "Jacob, you can't fight against your brothers."

His voice hardened. "I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard, but if they were really coming to kill her—I would be able to stop them."

Carlisle shook his head, anxious. "No, I didn't mean that you would be… incapable. But that it would be very wrong. I can't have that on my conscience." _Oh, Carlisle, you're so compassionate. _Gag me.

"It wouldn't be on yours, Doc. It would be on mine. And I can take it," Jacob said.

"No, Jacob. We will make sure that our actions don't make that a necessity." He frowned thoughtfully "We'll go three at a time," he decided after a second. "That's probably the best we can do."

"I don't know, Doc. Dividing down the middle isn't the best strategy."

"We've got some extra abilities that will even it up. If Edward is one of the three, he'll be able to give us a few miles' radius of safety."

We both glanced at Edward. His expression had Carlisle backtracking quickly.

"I'm sure there are other ways, too," Carlisle said. "Alice, I would imagine you could see which routes would be a mistake?"

"The ones that disappear," Alice said, nodding. "Easy."

I, who had gone all tense with Carlisle's first plan, loosened up. Bella was staring unhappily at Alice, that little crease between her eyes that she got when she was stressed out.

"Okay, then," he said. "That's settled. I'll just be on my way. Seth, I'll expect you back on at dusk, so get a nap in there somewhere, all right?"

"Sure, Jake. I'll phase back soon as I'm done. Unless . . ." he hesitated, looking at Bella. "Do you need me?"

"She's got blankets," Jacob snapped at him.

"I'm fine, Seth, thanks," Bella said quickly.-

Then Esme flitted back in the room, a big covered dish in her hands. She stopped hesitantly just behind Carlisle's elbow, her wide, dark gold eyes on Jacob's face. She held the dish out and took a step closer.

"Jacob," she said quietly. Her voice was softer than usual. "I know it's… unappetizing to you, the idea of eating here, where it smells so unpleasant. But I would feel much better if you would take some food with you when you go. I know you can't go home, and that's because of us. Please—ease some of my remorse. Take something to eat." She held the food out to him, her face all soft and pleading. _Aw_, I saw in his mind, _she reminds him of his _mom. This was weird, though, even for Esme. Was _everyone_ going crazy lately?

"Uh, sure, sure," he mumbled. "I guess. Maybe Leah's still hungry or something." He reached out and took the food with one hand, holding it away, at arm's length. He planned to go dump it under a tree or something, so as not to make her to feel bad. Interesting.

Then he remembered me.

_**Don't you say anything to her! Let her think I ate it, **_he "yelled" at me.

Like I cared enough to do anything like that. _Then again..._

"Thank you, Jacob," Esme said, smiling.

"Um, thank you," he said. His face flushed.

"Will you come back later, Jake?" Bella asked as he tried to take off.

"Uh, I don't know."

She pressed her lips together, like she was trying not to smile. "Please? I might get cold." What a cocktease.

He inhaled deeply through his nose, and then winced at the smell. "Maybe."

"Jacob?" Esme asked. He backed toward the door as she continued; she came after him. "I left a basket of clothes on the porch. They're for Leah. They're freshly washed—I tried to touch them as little as possible." She frowned. "Would you mind taking them to her?"

"On it," he muttered, and then ducked out the door.


	12. New Routine

Jacob took Seth and went out to do a wide patrol. Meanwhile, the creature that had taken root in Bella's body was showing further signs of being a parasite.

She was laying on her bed, and I was sitting next to her on the floor, when I heard another distinctive _crack_. Bella screamed and clutched the side opposite the rib it had already broken.

_**STOP THAT! **_I directed the strongest sending I'd ever attempted, aimed at Bella's stomach and the thing growing there.

_**. . . . .**_

Great. It wasn't answering. Now it didn't even care. It only cared about its own comfort and having "elbow room," its host be damned. Or killed, in this case. Just like a parasite.

Rosalie was already beside her, asking her where it hurt and preparing to carry her upstairs again. I snarled in the direction of the "thing," but Rosalie immediately got between me and Bella, staring me down and quietly hissing a threat.

I backed off; didn't even go upstairs with them this time. I was too enraged to adequately control myself. _Now what? This thing is only getting stronger, destroying Bella from the inside, and being aided by Rosalie, and most importantly Carlisle, though each for their own reasons. It has already shown a willfulness beyond what I can control. What will happen when this thing is born? _ I sank down on the couch and put my head in my hands. Everything was spinning out of control. When was the last I had had control over _anything_ connected to me? Esme came in later, hugged me, and told me how wonderful a husband I was to show such compassion for my lovely wife. It was hogwash, but at that moment I didn't care, and I collapsed in her motherly arms.

* * *

When Jacob returned a couple hours later, he didn't hesitate at the door; he just walked through like he owned the place. Neither Rosalie nor Bella were anywhere in sight. He looked around wildly, fearing the worst.

"She's all right," I whispered. "Or, the same, I should say." I hadn't looked up to speak. I was still on the couch, with Esme next to me, arm wrapped tight around my shoulders.

"Hello, Jacob," she said. "I'm so glad you came back."

"Me, too," Alice said with a deep sigh. She came prancing down the stairs, making a suggestive face.

"Uh, hey," Jacob said. Her expression was making him feel distinctly uncomfortable, and he didn't know why; only Alice and I knew, and I wished I _didn't_.

"Where's Bella?"

"Bathroom," Alice said. "Mostly fluid diet, you know. Plus, the whole pregnancy thing does that to you, I hear."

"Ah." He stood there awkwardly, rocking back and forth on his heels.

"Oh, wonderful," Rosalie grumbled. Jacob whipped his head around and saw her coming from the hall half-hidden behind the stairway. She had Bella cradled gently in her arms, a harsh sneer on her face. "I knew I smelled something nasty."

And, just like before, Bella's face lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning. Like he'd brought her the greatest gift ever. She would never stop teasing him.

"Jacob," she breathed. "You came."

"Hi, Bells."

Esme and I both got up as Rosalie carefully laid Bella out on the couch. Despite Rosalie's care, Bella turned white and held her breath—like she was set on not making any noise no matter how much it hurt. She couldn't even breathe now without both sides of her chest hurting.

I reached out and brushed my hand across her forehead and then along her neck, doing a cursory examination. I tried to make it look as if I were just sweeping her hair back, so she wouldn't pitch a fit about it.

"Are you cold?" I asked.

"I'm fine."

"Bella, you know what Carlisle told you," Rosalie said. "Don't downplay _anything_. It doesn't help us take care of either of you."

"Okay, I'm a little cold. Edward, can you hand me that blanket?"

Jacob rolled his eyes. "Isn't that sort of the point of me being here?"

"You just walked in," Bella said. "After running all day, I'd bet. Put your feet up for a minute. I'll probably warm up again in no time."

He ignored her, going to sit on the floor next the sofa while she was still telling him what to do. At that point, though, he wasn't sure what to do, so he just leaned carefully against her side, letting his arm rest along the length of hers, and held her hand.

"Thanks, Jake," she said, and she shivered once.

"Sure," he said.

I sat on the arm of the sofa by Bella's feet, eyes always on her face.

Then in the middle of all this tension, Jacob's stomach rumbled with hunger.

"Rosalie, why don't you get Jacob something from the kitchen?" Alice said. She was sitting quietly behind the back of the sofa.

Rosalie stared at Alice in disbelief.

"Thanks, anyway, Alice, but I don't think I'd want to eat something Blondie's spit in. I'd bet my system wouldn't take too kindly to venom," Jacob replied acidly.

"Rosalie would never embarrass Esme by displaying such a lack of hospitality."

"Of _course _not," Rosalie said in a sugar-sweet voice that Jacob immediately distrusted. She got up and breezed out of the room.

I saw what she was going to do, and sighed.

"You'd tell me if she poisoned it, right?" Jacob asked me.

"Yes," I promised, and for some reason he believed me. I wouldn't have told him that; really, I wouldn't have cared enough.

There was a lot of banging in the kitchen, and the sound of metal protesting as it was literally bent out of shape and into a new one. I sighed again, but couldn't help smiling just a little, too. Rosalie could have a decent sense of humor, sometimes.

Then Rosalie was back before I could think much more about it. With a pleased smirk, she set a silver bowl on the floor next to Jacob.

"Enjoy, mongrel."

It had once probably been a big mixing bowl, but she'd bent the bowl back in on itself until it was shaped almost exactly like a dog dish. I had to be impressed with her quick craftsmanship. And her attention to detail. She'd scratched the word _Fido _into the side. Excellent handwriting.

_Damn! Wish I'd thought of that._

In spite of the delivery, the food looked passable; steak, no less, and a big baked potato with all the fixings. Jacob said, "Thanks, Blondie."

She snorted.

"Hey, do you know what you call a blonde with a brain?" he asked, and then continued on the same breath, "a golden retriever." Why was he insulting her right after she did something nice for him? Well, maybe not nice, but at least polite.

"I've heard that one, too," she said, no longer smiling. _HOW old is this guy supposed to be again? _She thought.

"I'll keep trying," he promised, and then dug in.

She made a disgusted face and rolled her eyes. Then she sat in one of the armchairs and started flicking through channels on the big TV so fast that there was no way she could really be surfing for something to watch.

When Jacob was finished, Bella reached down to pull her fingers softly through his hair. She patted it down against the back of his neck. Her cocktease throttle was wide open, it seemed.

"Time for a haircut, huh?" he asked.

"You're getting a little shaggy," she said. "Maybe—"

"Let me guess, someone around here used to cut hair in a salon in Paris?"

She chuckled. "Probably."

"No thanks," he said. "I'm good for a few more weeks. So… um… what's the, er, date? You know, the due date for the little monster."

She smacked the back of his head with about as much force as with a fly swatter, but didn't answer.

"I'm serious," he went on. "I want to know how long I'm gonna have to be here."

_**How long **_**you're **_**gonna be here**_**, **he added in his head.

Her eyes were thoughtful; the stress line was there between her brows again. "I don't know," she murmured. "Not exactly. Obviously, we're not going with the nine-month model here, and we can't get an ultrasound, so Carlisle is guesstimating from how big I am. Normal people are supposed to be about forty centimeters here"—she ran her finger right down the middle of her bulging stomach—"when the baby is fully grown. One centimeter for every week. I was thirty this morning, and I've been gaining about two centimeters a day, sometimes more. . . ."

_Two weeks to a day, the days flying by. Her life speeding by in fast-forward. How many days does that give her, if she was counting to forty? Four? _

"You okay?" she asked.

He nodded, not trusting his voice.

Bella ran her finger across his cheekbone. "It's going to be okay," she sort of crooned. It didn't matter that the words meant nothing. She said it the way people sang those senseless nursery rhymes to kids. _Rock-a-bye, baby._

"Right," Jacob muttered.

She curled against his arm, resting her head on his shoulder. Was she _trying_ to make me jealous? "I didn't think you would come. Seth said you would, and so did Edward, but I didn't believe them."

"Why not?" he asked gruffly.

"You're not happy here. But you came anyway."

"You wanted me here."

"I know. But you didn't have to come, because it's not fair for me to want you here. I would have understood."

It was quiet for a minute. I just watched the TV as Rosalie went on flipping through the channels. She was into the six hundreds, most of which we didn't get.

"Thank you for coming," Bella whispered.

"Can I ask you something?" Jacob asked.

"Of course."

"Why _do _you want me here? Seth could keep you warm, and he's probably easier to be around, happy little punk. But when _I _walk in the door, you smile like I'm your favorite person in the world."

"You're one of them."

"That sucks, you know."

"Yeah." She sighed. "Sorry."

"Why, though? You didn't answer that."

"It feels… _complete _when you're here, Jacob. Like all my family is together. I mean, I guess that's what it's like—I've never had a big family before now. It's nice." She smiled for half a second. "But it's just not whole unless you're here."

_Oh, blah, blah, blah, you just want your boy-toy here, too, but you'd never admit it to him, because then he'd go away, right?_

"I'll never be part of your family, Bella."

"You've always been a part of my family," she disagreed.

He ground his teeth together. "That's a crap answer."

"What's a good one?"

"How about, 'Jacob, I get a kick out of your pain.'"

_That _would_ be the most accurate, yes._

She flinched. "You'd like that better?" she whispered.

"It's easier, at least. I could wrap my head around it. I could deal with it."

He looked back down at her face then. Her eyes were shut and she was frowning. "We got off track, Jake. Out of balance. You're supposed to be part of my life. I can feel that, and so can you." She paused for a second without opening her eyes, like she was waiting for him to deny it. When he didn't say anything, she went on. "But not like this. We did something wrong. No. I did. I did something wrong, and we got off track. . . ." Her voice trailed off, and the frown on her face relaxed until it was just a little pucker at the corner of her lips. Jacob waited on eggshells for her to pour some more salt into his wounds, but Bella had rather abruptly fallen into a fitful sleep.

"She's exhausted," I murmured. "It's been a long, hard day. I think she would have gone to sleep earlier, but she was waiting for you."

He didn't look at me. "Seth said it broke another of her ribs."

"Yes. It's making it hard for her to breathe."

"Great."

"Let me know when she gets hot again."

"Yeah."

She still had goose bumps on her arms, and Jacob thought about getting up to get a blanket. I snagged one draped over the arm of the sofa and flung it out so that it settled over her, just so he would shut up about it..

_So, what's this about her and Charlie? She's calling him now? _Jacob thought.

"Yes," I said grimly. "It's not a good idea." I walked out of the room, beckoning to Jacob to come with me, so we wouldn't bother Bella while she slept. What had _I _become lately? Something of a fatalist, I guess. I couldn't stand Bella's whining anymore, so I just did what she asked so she would shut up, even when she was willfully killing herself. She had us all on eggshells.

"Then why? Why is Bella telling her father she's _on the mend _when it'll only make him more miserable?"

"She can't bear his anxiety."

"So it's better—"

"No. It's _not _better. But I'm not going to force her to do anything that makes her unhappy now. Whatever happens, this makes her feel better. I'll deal with the rest afterward. She's very sure she's going to live," I said.

"But not human," he protested.

"No, not human. But she hopes to see Charlie again, anyway."

"See. Charlie." He deliberately paused. "Afterwards. See Charlie when she's all sparkly white with the bright red eyes. I'm not a bloodsucker, so maybe I'm missing something, but _Charlie _seems like kind of a strange choice for her first meal."

I sighed. "She knows she won't be able to be near him for at least a year. She thinks she can stall. Tell Charlie she has to go to a special hospital on the other side of the world. Keep in contact through phone calls. . . ."

"That's insane."

"Yes."

"Charlie's not stupid. Even if she doesn't kill him, he's going to notice a difference."

"She's sort of banking on that."

He continued to stare, waiting for me to explain.

"She wouldn't be aging, of course, so that would set a time limit, even if Charlie accepted whatever excuse she comes up with for the changes. Do you remember when you tried to tell her about your transformation? How you made her guess?"

His hands flexed into fists. "She told you about that?"

"Yes. She was explaining her… idea. You see, she's not allowed to tell Charlie the truth—it would be very dangerous for him. But he's a smart, practical man. She thinks he'll come up with his own explanation. She assumes he'll get it wrong." I snorted. "After all, we hardly adhere to vampire canon. He'll make some wrong assumption about us, like she did in the beginning, and we'll go along with it. She thinks she'll be able to see him… from time to time."

"Insane," he repeated.

"Yes," I agreed again. "I'll deal with whatever comes," I whispered, and turned my face away from him. "I won't cause her pain now."

"Four days?" he asked.

I didn't look up. "Give or take."

"Then what?"

"What do you mean, exactly?"

He thought back to what Bella had said about the thing being wrapped up nice and tight in something strong, something like vampire skin. _So how does that work? How does it get out?_

"From what little research we've been able to do, it would appear the creatures use their own teeth to escape the womb,"I whispered.

He paused to swallow back bile. "Research?" he asked weakly.

"That's why you haven't seen Jasper and Emmett around. That's what Carlisle is doing now. Trying to decipher ancient stories and myths, as much as we can with what we have to work with here, looking for anything that might help us predict the creature's behavior."

Right. Stories. More like scouring Carlisle's notes, since they might just be the most comprehensive guide to this sort of thing. "Then is this thing the first of its kind?" I asked, anticipating Jacob's next question. "Maybe. It's all very sketchy. The myths could easily be the products of fear and imagination. Though . . ." I deliberately hesitated, "_your_ myths are true, are they not? Perhaps these are, too. They do seem to be localized, linked. . . ."

"How did you find… ?"

"There was a woman we encountered in South America. She'd been raised in the traditions of her people. She'd heard warnings about such creatures, old stories that had been passed down." I hoped this all sounded plausible; I was really just grabbing explanations out of my ass, so to speak.

"What were the warnings?" he whispered.

"That the creature must be killed immediately. Before it could gain too much strength. Of course, their legends say the same of us. That we must be destroyed. That we are soulless murderers."

_Two for two. _I had to chuckle at that.

"What did their stories say about the… mothers?"

I gave him a forlorn glance and looked away, and, as I hoped, didn't press me, assuming the answer.

It was Rosalie, who'd been so still and quiet since Bella'd fallen asleep that we'd nearly forgotten her, who answered, walking in on us.

She made a scornful noise in the back of her throat. "Of course there were no survivors," she said. _No survivors_, blunt and uncaring. "Giving birth in the middle of a disease-infested swamp with a medicine man smearing sloth spit across your face to drive out the evil spirits, was never the safest method. Even the normal births went badly half the time. None of them had what this baby has: caregivers with an idea of what the baby needs, who try to meet those needs. A doctor with a totally unique knowledge of vampire nature. A plan in place to deliver the baby as safely as possible. Venom that will repair anything that goes wrong. The baby will be fine. And those other mothers would probably have survived if they'd had that; if they even existed in the first place. Something I am not convinced of." She sniffed disdainfully.

The baby, the baby. Like that was all that mattered. Bella's life was a minor detail to her, easy to blow off. But, dammit, she was _mine_! My claws came out. Totally egotistical and indifferent, Rosalie twisted in her chair so that her back was to me. I leaned forward, shifting into a crouch.

_Allow me, _Jacob suggested.

I paused, raising one eyebrow.

Silently, he lifted the doggy bowl off the floor. Then, with a quick, powerful flip of his wrist, he threw it into the back of Rosalie's head so hard that, with an earsplitting _bang, _it smashed flat before it ricocheted across the room and snapped the round top piece off the thick newel post at the foot of the stairs. Bella twitched but didn't wake up.

"Dumb blonde," he muttered.

Rosalie turned her head slowly, and her eyes were blazing.

"You. Got. Food. In. My. Hair."

That did it. I busted up. I laughed so hard that I ran out of breath and had to inhale again to continue laughing. From behind the couch, I heard Alice's tinkling laugh join in. I wondered why Rosalie didn't spring at him; I sort of expected it. But then I realized that our laughter had woken Bella up, though she'd slept right through the real noise. We went back into the room where she lay.

"What's so funny?" she mumbled.

"I got food in her hair," Jacob told her, chuckling again.

"I'm not going to forget this, dog," Rosalie hissed.

"S'not so hard to erase a blonde's memory," he countered. "Just blow in her ear."

"Get some new jokes," she snapped. Even _I _was getting fed up with his third-grade humor that wasn't funny anymore, if it ever was to begin with.

"C'mon, Jake. Leave Rose alo—"

_**More!**_

Bella broke off mid-sentence and sucked in a sharp breath. In the same second, I leaned over the top of Jacob, ripping the blanket out of the way. Bella seemed to convulse, her back arching off the sofa. "He's just," she panted, "stretching." Her lips were white, and she had her teeth locked together like she was trying to hold back a scream.

I put both hands on either side of her face. "Carlisle?" I called in a tense voice.

"Right here," the doctor said. Whoa. I hadn't even heard him come in.

"Okay," Bella said, still breathing hard and shallow. "Think it's over. Poor kid doesn't have enough room, that's all. He's getting so big."

It was really hard to take, that adoring tone she used to describe the thing that was tearing her up. Especially after Rosalie's callousness. Made Jacob almost wish he could throw something at Bella, too. I know _I_ wanted to throw something.

She didn't pick up on his mood, luckily. "You know, he reminds me of you, Jake," she said, still gasping.

"Do _not _compare me to that thing," he spit out through his teeth. I silently concurred.

"I just meant your growth spurt," she said, looking like he'd hurt her feelings. "You shot right up. I could watch you getting taller by the minute. He's like that, too. Growing so fast."

Jacob bit his tongue hard enough to cause blood to flow, holding back his furious retort.

She took an easier breath and then relaxed back into the sofa, her body going limp.

"Hmm," Carlisle murmured. I looked up, and his eyes were on me. _**If this continues, it will consume her before it is even born. We'll lose them both.**_

"What?" Jacob demanded.

"Oh, we're just figuring out how much more damage Bella will have to take before this is over," I replied sarcastically. Jacob growled at that, but I went on. "We're talking medicine, so unless you've had more education than your years would suggest, please leave us to our conversation."

Bella's light snore started up again, accenting my sarcasm nicely.

While we talked, Jacob had other things on his mind, a few facts he was trying to reconcile, but which were unfortunately true.

Fact one, Bella had said that the creature was protected by something as strong as vampire skin, something that was too impenetrable for ultrasounds, too tough for needles.

Fact two, Rosalie had said we had a plan to deliver the creature safely.

Fact three, I had said that—in myths—other monsters like this one would chew their way out of their own mothers.

He shuddered. That made a sick kind of sense, because, fact four, not many things could cut through something as strong as vampire skin. The half-creature's teeth, according to myth, were strong enough. Jacob's teeth were strong enough, and vampire teeth were strong enough.

It was hard to miss the obvious, but I sure wished I could. Because I had a pretty good idea exactly how Rosalie planned to get that thing "safely" out, and Jacob figured it out, too, and he was _not_ happy about it.

* * *

There was another surprise waiting for Jacob when he got back from his next patrol. Alice opened the door for him before he could walk in.

She nodded. "Hey, wolf."

"Hey, shortie. What's going on upstairs?" The big room was empty; we were all on the second floor.

She shrugged. "Maybe another break." She tried to say the words casually, but Jacob could see how much she disliked this whole situation. He and I weren't the only ones who were concerned over this. Alice wanted Bella, too, after all.

"Another rib?" he asked hoarsely.

"No. Pelvis this time."

It was beginning to happen like clockwork, now. Most pregnant women had cycles of contractions; Bella had moments of major bone breakage. Funny how it kept hitting me, like each new thing was a surprise. When was I going to stop being surprised?

Then Rosalie called from where we were upstairs.

"See, I _told _you I didn't hear a crack. You need your ears checked, Edward."

I just glared at her sullenly. She wouldn't hardly let me near Bella anymore, unless _Bella_ demanded it. She was closing us off, slowly but surely. Rosalie was her willing accomplice...or maybe she was the accomplice of... I shook my head. No way; it was just a baby yet; it couldn't be that strong. Abruptly I realized that Rosalie had taken Bella downstairs again, and I hastened to follow.

The procession came down the stairs then. Bella was gripping her cup of blood in both hands, and her face was white. It was obvious, though Rosalie compensated for every tiny movement of her body to keep from jostling her, that she was hurting.

"Jake," she whispered, and she smiled through the pain.

He stared at her, saying nothing.

Carlisle came down slowly, the last one, his face creased with worry. It made him look old enough to be a doctor for once.

"Carlisle," Jacob said. "We went halfway to Seattle. There's no sign of the pack. You're good to go."

"Thank you, Jacob. This is good timing. There's much that we need." His black eyes flickered to the cup that Bella was holding so tight.

"Honestly, I think you're safe to take more than three. I'm pretty positive that Sam is concentrating on La Push."

Carlisle nodded in agreement. "If you think so. Alice, Esme, Jasper, and I will go. Then Alice can take Emmett and Rosa—"

"Not a chance," Rosalie hissed. "Emmett can go with you now."

"You should hunt," Carlisle said in a gentle voice.

His tone didn't soften hers. "I'll hunt when _he _does," she growled, jerking her head toward me and then flipping her hair back.

Carlisle sighed.

Jasper and Emmett were down the stairs in a flash, and Alice joined them by the glass back door in the same second. Esme flitted to Alice's side. Carlisle put his hand on Jacob's arm. "Thank you," he said again, and then he darted out the door with the other four.

Jacob's eyes followed them as they flew across the lawn and then disappeared. There was no sound for a minute.

Then Jacob and Rosalie decided to get into it again, and I knew there would be no peace found in this house for a while. The chance to ruin Rosalie's morning seemed too good for him to pass up. So he sauntered over to the armchair next to the one Rosalie had and settled in, sprawling out so that his head was tilted toward Bella and his left foot was near Rosalie's face.

"Ew. Someone put the dog out," she murmured, wrinkling her nose.

"Have you heard this one, Psycho? How do a blonde's brain cells die?"

She didn't say anything.

"Well?" he asked. "Do you know the punch line or not?"

She looked pointedly at the TV and ignored him. I had to admire her patience; he was even starting to get to _me_, and I wasn't his target.

"Has she heard it?" he asked me.

There was no humor on my face—this had stopped being funny a long time ago. But I wearily said, "No."

"Awesome. So you'll enjoy this, bloodsucker—a blonde's brain cells die _alone_."

Rosalie still didn't look at him. "I have killed a hundred times more often than you have, you disgusting beast. _Don't_ forget that," she said softly.

That mutt did not know just how thin of ice he was treading on right that minute. When she got quiet, and apparently tolerant like she was right now...well, the last time I seen her this way preceded a series of murders in a certain big city. Correlation _and_ causation, then. If he didn't let up, that might happen again.

"Someday, Beauty Queen, you're going to get tired of just threatening me. I'm really looking forward to that," Jacob taunted.

"Enough, Jacob," Bella said. She was scowling at him. It looked like yesterday's good mood was long gone. Did she recognize the potential danger he was in? Or was she just getting tired of his lame jokes too?

"You want me to take off?" he offered.

She blinked, and her frown disappeared. She seemed totally shocked that he would come to that conclusion. "No! Of course not." Annnnd she was back in cocktease mode. Good to know _that_ never got old.

He and I sighed almost at the same moment. We both wished she'd get over him, and soon. Too much to hope for though, since that would actually make things _easier_ around here, for once.

"You look tired," Bella said to Jacob.

"Dead beat," he admitted.

"_I'd _like to beat you dead," Rosalie muttered, too low for Bella to hear.

He just slumped deeper into the chair, getting comfortable.

After a few minutes Bella asked Rosalie for a refill. Rosalie blew upstairs to get her some more blood. It was really quiet.

_**I like it.**_

I lifted my head. "Did you say something?" I asked Bella.

But no one _had _said anything, if Jacob's and Bella's thoughts and expressions were anything to go by.

"Me?" she asked after a second. "I didn't say anything."

I moved onto my knees, leaning forward over her, suddenly intense in a whole different way. I on her face. "What are you thinking about right now?"

She stared at me blankly. "Nothing. What's going on?"

"What were you thinking about a minute ago?" I asked.

"Just… Esme's island. And feathers."

_**Very nice.**_

"Say something else," I whispered.

"Like what? Edward, what's going on?"

_**I like that sound.**_

I very lightly put both of my hands against her huge, round stomach. "The f—" I swallowed. "It… the baby likes the sound of your voice."

There was one short beat of total silence. Then—

"_Holy crow, you can hear him!_" Bella shouted. In the next second, she winced.

Her eyes got all wide and full of wonder. She patted the side of her stomach. "Hey, baby."

I started listening hard, head tilted toward the bulge.

"What's he thinking now?" she demanded eagerly.

_**I like it here. Hmmmm...**_A soft humming noise followed, which I gathered meant pleasure of some kind.

"It… he or she, is . . ." I paused and looked up into her eyes. "He says...he's _happy_," I said incredulously.

Her breath caught, and it was impossible not to see the fanatical gleam in her eyes. The adoration and the devotion. Big, fat tears overflowed her eyes and ran silently down her face and over her smiling lips.

I was getting pretty good at this lying thing. All right, I wasn't outright lying; more a lie of omission. It was happy, all right. She just assumed the wrong reasons for why it was so.

"Of course you're happy, pretty baby, of course you are," she crooned, rubbing her stomach while the tears washed her cheeks. "How could you not be, all safe and warm and loved? I love you so much, little EJ, of course you're happy."

"What did you call him?" I asked.

She blushed again. "I sort of named him. I didn't think you would want… well, you know."

"...EJ?"

"Your father's name was Edward, too."

"Yes, it was. What—?"

_**Like that sound.**_

"What?" Bella prompted.

"He likes my voice, too."

"Of course he does." Her tone was almost gloating now. "You have the most beautiful voice in the universe. Who wouldn't love it?"

"Do you have a backup plan?" Rosalie asked then, leaning over the back of the sofa with the same wondering, gloating look on her face that was on Bella's. "What if he's a she?"

Bella wiped the back of her hand under her wet eyes. "I kicked a few things around. Playing with Renée and Esme. I was thinking… Ruh-_nez_-may."

"Ruhnezmay?"

"R-e-n-e-s-m-e-e. Too weird?"

"No, I like it," Rosalie assured her. Their heads were close together, gold and mahogany. "It's beautiful, and one of a kind, so _that _fits."

_I _didn't like it. Then again, what I liked or wanted had very little bearing on what actually happened to or around me lately.

"I still think he's an Edward."

I stared off into space, keeping my face carefully blank as I listened.

"What?" Bella asked. "What's he thinking now?"

_**I love this vessel. I adore her...She will make a wonderful servant.**_

"He says...he loves you," I whispered, shocked into speech. It was capable of fully-formed, coherent thoughts now. "He says he...absolutely _adores _you." I couldn't get my head around the last part, and they wouldn't believe me now if I shared it, anyway.

_I'm alone now. All alone, _came the stricken thought from Jacob. _Of course he would betray me in the end._

He thought I had become enamored of the thing along with Bella and Rosalie. I thought about trying to convince him otherwise, but that would mean either going somewhere _far_ away to explain things to him, or sharing one of the secrets of my mind-reading ability with him. Well, he was too far gone into his self-destructive thoughts for the first option to be viable, and, well, for the second one, too.

That soon became irrelevant as he rose to his feet. He barely knew what he was doing; he stood there, trembling, ready to bolt for the very first escape that presented itself.

So I gave him one; at least one of us could get out of this monster-infested nightmare, if he was smart about it. I grabbed a random key from our set of spares, and tossed it at him, and he caught it reflexively.

"Go, Jacob. Get away from here." I didn't say it harshly; instead, I thought of them as more of a life preserver. I would help him find the escape he needed.

_And good luck and good riddance to you, _I thought as he darted out the door and into the sun.

* * *

**Like it, love it, hate it, questions? I would love to hear about it. As always, constructive criticism is appreciated. Thanks again for reading! **


	13. Chewing Out

**A/N:**** First, I don't know if I've ever said this, but thanks to marsbareater12,**** who told me my experimental "Jacob chapter" sucked. (You used nicer language, but when I looked again after your comment, that one really did suck). While I do like being complimented in reviews (who doesn't?) I really want to know if any readers think something just isn't working, or I make a glaring error. I do it with other people, and appreciate it when others do it for me. That said, here we go.**

**

* * *

**

The morning after Jacob took off, we had an unexpected visitor. I heard the sound of someone shifting from wolf to human, and looked out a window. I was surprised, and (I think) pleasantly so, to see Leah striding across the open yard, stark naked.

_Da-yamn. _Regardless of her ancestry and affiliation, she did have a _hot_ body, all slim curves and toned muscle. If not for the inevitable repulsion between us, I would do her in a heartbeat.

She walked up to the front porch and stood with her arms across her chest, hips cocked, waiting for someone to notice her.

I gave in and went to the door.

"Can I borrow some clothes?" she asked as soon as she saw me.

"Uh, yeah," I said hesitantly, a bit put off by her blunt manner. She no longer had any shame about being naked in front of a guy, it seemed. "I think some of Rosalie's things ought to fit you okay. Don't worry about her being mad about it," I went on, before she could voice the question. "She's actually away from the house, for once." That was true. Carlisle had somehow convinced her to come hunting with them, on the excuse that she would be stronger and better able to protect them, or something like that.

Whatever the reason, Rosalie was gone, and I was pretty sure that's why Leah came at that time, too. I gestured for her to follow and led her into the house.

I let her take anything she wanted to wear from Rosalie's room. It's not I cared; it wasn't _my _stuff she was rifling through. I couldn't help but notice with amusement that Leah chose all delicate fabrics like thin silks and sheer tops-things easily shredded. She did it on purpose, the minx, just to be sure they _would_ be shredded. This Leah was turning out to be almost likable.

"Where's Jacob?" she asked as she pulled some pants on.

"Out. He's...hoping to find the girl he's destined to Imprint on, if that makes any sense."

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, really? What brought that on?"

"Just...another interaction with Bella. Her...child...can communicate now."

"Uh-huh." The considering look she gave me was a little disconcerting.

"Hey, while you're here, do you want some food? Eggs, or...something?" I offered as she pulled the last top over her head.

She looked at me uncertainly. "Um...well, I haven't had bacon in _forever, _so..."

"Okay," I replied. "Cool. Bacon it is."

"Crispy!" she said quickly. "I like it crispy." She didn't lie, but her thoughts told me exactly why she asked for bacon. _Mmm, bacon..._Also, it was something simple to make, so I'd be more likely to agree, but it took a while, and she needed time to do what she had suddenly decided to do.

"Can I just...go speak with Bella while it's cooking? I haven't talked with her in so long..." she said, idly twirling a lock of hair in her fingers. If I didn't find her plan so potentially amusing, I would have had to expose it, just on principle; she did _not_ do stealth well.

"You can do whatever you want, honey," I said as I walked into the kitchen. "Just don't do anything I'd have to kill you for."

She hesitated at my parting words, but decided it was worth it, and went in to talk to Bella. Through her mind and thoughts, I could hear everything that went on in their exchange.

Leah padded almost silently across the room, until she was standing next to Bella's bed. It took Bella a moment to realize she was there. She gasped. "Leah! I didn't...what are you doing here?"

Leah remained silent a moment. "I guess I just figured that if I'm going to risk my life protecting some unknown entity, I'd at least like to see who-or what-I'm protecting."

Bella caressed her stomach. "His name will be Edward Jacob."

"Oh, really?" Leah asked scornfully.

"If he's a boy. For a girl, I've picked Renesmee."

"Renee-what? What kind of stupid name is that?"

Bella got defensive. "It's my two moms combined. Renee and Esme."

"That...is the stupidest way to name a child I think I've ever heard. What would your name be if your parents had decided to combine _their_ names? Ren-lee? Char-nay?" She drew out the syllables of the "names" to a ridiculous degree.

"It's not stupid. This baby is special; he or she will have a special name."

"Special. Right." She folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the bedframe. "So what's so special about 'Edward Jacob'? They're both common names, probably together, too."

"They're the names of the two men I love most," Bella said wistfully.

At that, Leah's temper stretched almost to its breaking point. "Bull shit," she spat out.

"What?" Bella looked up at her, bewildered.

"You heard me. I said buuuuullllll shit. Bull shit you love them both. I know what's going to happen, what you're counting on, and I can see right through you, you cold-hearted bitch." Bella stared at her, stricken into silence. "You only want the eternal youth that Edward can give you, and you love jerking Jacob around, because he'll let you, though Lord only knows why."

"I-I'm not!" Bella protested. "I love them both; I want them both to be-"

"-with you? Is that right? Let me tell you something, missy: If you really loved them both, Jacob wouldn't be hanging around you anymore. You know why? Because you would have let him go."

Bella looked up at her pleadingly. "No, he's my best friend, I-"

"-like to lead him on, don't you?" Leah turned so she was directly facing Bella, and leaned down until they were face to face. "Do you have any idea what it's like to watch you and Jacob do your little 'dance' from both the outside _and_ the inside?"

"What?"

Leah tapped her forehead. "Pack telepathy, remember? We not only see everything through our _own_ eyes, but through each others' too, and that includes Jacob. We saw; every time he was about to break away for good, you'd give him a look, a smile, '_kiss me, Jacob.' M_ade me sick."

_**Father, stop this...**_

I ignored it.

Bella's lower lip trembled, and she started whimper. "Why are being so mean? It's just so hard to be without him, I just want-"

"DON'T talk to me about how hard your life is," Leah hissed at her. "You forget who you're talking to, _Isabella_." She started pacing the room. "You whine about how your life is _so hard, _ when you have a cool dad, a boyfriend, and a family all ready to let you join their ranks. When your life's been ripped up by the roots, and the only people who could understand don't want you anywhere near them, and your fiance ditches you for your cousin who _also _happens to be your best friend, THEN come talk to me about how life isn't fair." She whirled and began striding toward Bella where she lay.

_**AUNTIE! **_The creature screamed.

Leah continued her rant while walking toward Bella. "You know what? I'm _happy_ that they're gonna turn you. In fact, I'm a little excited that in the near future, you will no longer be human. You know why? Because right now, you're among the ranks of humans, and there are social conventions preventing me from harming you." When she reached Bella, she leaned down and grabbed Bella by the collar with both hands, lifting Bella's face up to hers. "But when you're a vampire, you know what else you'll be?" She leaned closer until she could whisper in Bella's ear, "Fair. Game."

I decided that was enough. And besides, the bacon was done, and Rosalie was on her way, answering the "baby's" cry.

I popped in with a plate loaded with bacon. "Hey, extra crispy, right?"

"Edward," Bella whispered, stark terror in her eyes.

I rushed over to the bed. "Hey, what's going on here?" I asked innocently, but with a worried tone. "What has she been telling you, Bella?"

"Tch. Just calling her out on her immature behavior for once in her life," Leah answered, backing away. Bella's eyes were welling with tears.

I sighed roughly. "Well, whatever it was, you upset Bella, so I think it's time for you to leave."

"Be glad to," she said as she snatched the plate of bacon from me. Guess she really _did_ like bacon that much.

Not one minute after she left, Rosalie came tearing into the room and went straight to Bella's side. "What happened? Is she okay? Did that bitch-?"

"Settle down, she's gone, it's over and done," I said calmly, trying to alleviate some of her anger and worry.

"I don't want that girl near Bella ever again," she demanded, eyes flashing.

"She won't be allowed, not now that we know how she really feels," I said placatingly.

"Damn right she won't!" Rosalie said, still itching to go after Leah. "If she ever steps foot in this house again, I'll kill her!"

* * *

About an hour later a car pulled up; it was the one I had lent to Jacob. _Damn it. _Even though I had enjoyed the free "show," I knew I would have to make at least a token effort to "punish" Leah for her perceived crime. I went outside to meet him. "A few things, Jacob," I said as soon as he cut the engine.

He took a deep breath and held it for a minute. Then, slowly, he got out of the car and threw the keys to me. "Thanks for the loan," he said sourly. "What do you want _now_?" He thought he would now have to repay that "loan." I suppose he sort of would.

"First of all… I know how averse you are to using your authority with your pack, but . . ."

He blinked, astonished that I would even dream of commenting on _that_.

"What?"

"If you can't or won't control Leah, then I—"

"Leah?" he interrupted, clenching his teeth. "What happened?"

"She came up to see why you'd left so abruptly. I tried to explain. I suppose it might not have come out right."

"What did she do?"

"She phased to her human form and—"

"Really?" he interrupted again, shocked this time. He couldn't process that. _Leah let her guard down right in the mouth of the enemy's lair?_

"She wanted to… _speak _to Bella."

"To _Bella_?"

I was starting to get a little frustrated. "Is there an echo in here? I won't let Bella be upset like that again. I don't care how justified Leah thinks she is! I didn't hurt her—of course I wouldn't—but I'll throw her out of the house if it happens again."

"Hold _on_. What did she _say_?"

I took a deep breath, as if I were composing myself. "Leah was...unnecessarily harsh. I'm not going to pretend that I understand why Bella is unable to let go of you, but I do know that she does not behave this way to hurt you." Ugh, why was I still doing this? How much sappier could I sound? "She suffers a great deal over the pain she's inflicting on you, and on me, by asking you to stay. What Leah said was uncalled for. Bella's been crying—"

"Wait—Leah was yelling at Bella about _me_?"

I nodded sharply. "You were quite vehemently championed."

He paused. "I didn't ask her to do that."

"I know."

Jacob was stunned by the fact that Leah had gone to such lengths to defend him, and it came out in his response. "I...can't promise to control Leah," He said. "I won't do that. But I'll talk to her, okay? And I don't think there'll be a repeat. Leah's not one to hold back, so she probably got it all off her chest today."

"I would say so," I responded sardonically.

"Anyway, I'll talk to Bella about it, too. She doesn't need to feel bad. This one's on me."

"I already told her that."

"Of course you did. Is she okay?"

"She's sleeping now. Rose is with her." That's what the creature demanded I call her now, on threat of kicking Bella again. I hated the little monster. "She's… better in some ways. Aside from Leah's tirade and the resulting guilt."

_Better. Because Edward can hear that monster and everything is all lovey-dovey now. Fantastic._

"It's a bit more than that," I murmured. "Now that I can make out the child's thoughts, it's apparent that he or she has remarkably developed mental facilities. He can understand us, to an extent."

His jaw dropped. "Are you _serious_?"

"Yes. He seems to have a vague sense of what hurts her now. He's trying to avoid that, as much as possible. He… _loves _her. Already."

_**I **_**love ****_my host-mommy..._**the predatory tone almost made me sick.

He stared at my, eyes wide. He thought my attitude was due to the fact that Bella's baby _loved _her now, and so I couldn't hate it. Only a month in and already dabbling in blackmail. I went on, "The progress, I believe, is more than we'd judged. When Carlisle returns—"

"They're not back?" He cut in sharply. He thought of Sam and Jared, watching the road. _Would they get curious as to what was going on?_

"Alice and Jasper are. Carlisle sent all the blood he was able to acquire, but it wasn't as much as he was hoping for—Bella will use up this supply in another day the way her appetite has grown. Carlisle stayed to try another source. I don't think that's necessary now, but he wants to be covered for any eventuality."

"Why isn't it necessary? If she needs more?"

"I'm trying to persuade Carlisle to deliver the baby as soon as he is back."

"_What?"_

"The...child has to avoid rough movements, but it's difficult. He's become too big. It's madness to wait, when he's clearly developed beyond what Carlisle had guessed. Bella's too fragile to delay."

He stared at me in shock. This was all happening too quickly for Jacob. Poor love-sick cast-off. I waited while he recovered, and a new realization began to take hold.

"You think she's going to make it," he whispered.

"Yes. That was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about." He didn't say anything else. After a minute, I went on. "Waiting for the child to be ready was insanely dangerous. At any moment it could have been too late. But if we're proactive about this, if we act quickly, I see no reason why it should not go well. Knowing the child's mind is unbelievably helpful. Thankfully, Bella and Rose agree with me. Now that I've convinced them it's safe for the child if we proceed, there's nothing to keep this from working."

"When will Carlisle be back?" he asked, still whispering.

"By noon tomorrow."

His knees buckled. He grabbed onto the car to hold himself up.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I am truly sorry for the pain this causes you, Jacob, but Bella _is _going to survive, and I know that's what really matters to you. So I hate to do this now, while you're already dealing with too much, but, clearly, there is little time. I have to ask you for something." It was just so easy to mess with him.

"I don't have anything left," he choked out.

Oh, this was too beautiful. What a number Bella had done on him. He was about two steps away from some kind of breakdown, I was sure. I wondered what would happen if I just...pushed him a little. I lifted my hand again, as if to put it on his shoulder, but then let it drop and sighed.

"I know how much you have given," I said quietly. "But this is something you _do _have, and only you. I'm asking this of the true Alpha, Jacob. I'm asking this of Ephraim's heir. I want your permission to deviate from what we agreed to in our treaty with Ephraim. I want you to grant us an exception. I want your permission to save her life. You know I'll do it anyway, but I don't want to break faith with you if there is any way to avoid it. We never intended to go back on our word, and we don't do it lightly now. I want your understanding, Jacob, because you know exactly why we do this. I want the alliance between our families to survive when this is over."

_Sam_, he thought. _It's Sam you want._

"No. Sam's authority is assumed. It _belongs_ to you. You'll never take it from him, but no one can rightfully agree to what I'm asking except for _you_."

_It's not my decision._

"It is, Jacob, and you know it. Your word on this will condemn us or absolve us. Only you can give this to me."

_I can't think. I don't know._

"We don't have much time." _He_ glanced back toward the house.

No, there was no time. Jacob's few days had become a few hours.

_I don't know. Let me think. Just give me a minute here, okay?_

"Okay."

He started walking to the house, and I followed. Suddenly there was a movement in the brush at the edge of the big lawn, and then a low whimper. Seth shrugged through the ferns and loped over to us.

"Hey, kid," Jacob muttered.

He dipped his head, and Jacob patted his shoulder. "S'all cool," he lied. "I'll tell you about it later. Sorry to take off on you like that." Seth barked. "Hey, tell your sister to back off now, okay? Enough."

Seth nodded once.

He shoved against Seth's shoulder this time. "Get back to work. I'll spell you in a bit."

Seth leaned against him, shoving back, and then galloped into the trees.

"He has one of the purest, sincerest, _kindest _minds I've ever heard," I murmured when he was out of sight. "You're lucky to have his thoughts to share." He would have been a fun one to corrupt, if I'd had the time, opportunity, and motivation. The innocent, fun-loving ones always were.

"I know that," Jacob grunted.

We started toward the house, and both of our heads snapped up when we heard the sound of someone sucking through a straw. I hurried inside.

"Bella, love, I thought you were sleeping," I said when I reached her side. "I'm sorry, I wouldn't have left."

"Don't worry. I just got so thirsty—it woke me up. It's a good thing Carlisle is bringing more. This kid is going to need it when he gets out of me."

"True."

"I wonder if he'll want anything else," she mused.

"I suppose we'll find out." Probably the hard way.

Then Jacob walked through the door.

Alice said, "Finally," and Bella's eyes flashed to me. A radiant smile broke across her face for one second. Then it faltered, and her face fell. Her lips puckered, like she was trying not to cry.

Jacob suddenly wanted to punch Leah right in her stupid mouth. _Tsk, tsk, Jacob, you __can't get anything done when you're fighting amongst yourselves._

"Hey, Bells," he said quickly. "How ya doing?"

"I'm fine," she said.

"Big day today, huh? Lots of new stuff."

"You don't have to do that, Jacob."

"Don't know what you're talking about," he said, going to sit on the arm of the sofa by her head.

She gave me a reproachful look. "I'm _so _s—" she started to say.

He covered her lips with one finger.

"Jake," she mumbled, trying to pull his hand away. Her attempt was so weak it was hard to believe that she was really trying.

He shook his head. "You can talk when you're not being stupid."

"Fine, I won't say it," it sounded like she mumbled.

He pulled his hand away.

"Sorry!" she finished quickly, and then grinned.

He rolled his eyes and then smiled back at her. When he stared into her eyes, he suddenly saw something different, and unexpected.

I heard something unexpected as well.

_**Puppy...**_the young voice whispered in my head. **_I want you...and I want you to need me..._**

It felt like I could almost see the spell this creature wove through Jacob's mind, a spell of need, want and desire. I almost sighed in relief when I realized that it didn't _quite_ get him. He was still connecting all his feelings with Bella, assuming they were all about her.

Jacob thought about the fact that tomorrow, she'd be someone else. But hopefully alive, and that was what counted, right? Aside from the incomprehensible love he felt for Bella, there was still that other bond, and it ran bone deep; the new one that he didn't want to sever. Tomorrow, they would be enemies. Or allies. That distinction was up to him.

Finally he sighed. _Fine! he_ thought, _Go ahead. Save her. As Ephraim's heir, you have my permission, my word, that this will not violate the treaty. The others will just have to blame me. You were right—they can't deny that it's my right to agree to this._

"Thank you." I whispered low enough that Bella didn't hear anything.

"So," Bella asked, working to be casual. "How was your day?"

"Great. Went for a drive. Hung out in the park."

"Sounds nice."

"Sure, sure."

Suddenly, she made a face. "Rose?" she asked.

Rosalie chuckled. "Again?"

"I think I've drunk two gallons in the last hour," Bella complained.

Jacob and I both got out of the way while Rosalie came to lift Bella from the couch and take her to the bathroom.

"Can I walk?" Bella asked. "My legs are so stiff."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Rose'll catch me if I trip over my feet. Which could happen pretty easily, since I can't see them."

Rosalie set Bella carefully on her feet, keeping her hands right at Bella's shoulders. Bella stretched her arms out in front of her, wincing a little.

"That feels good," she sighed. "Ugh, but I'm huge. "One more day," she said, and patted her stomach. "All righty, then. Whoops—oh, no!"

The cup Bella had left on the sofa tumbled to one side, the dark red blood spilling out onto the pale fabric. Automatically, Bella bent over, reaching out to catch it.

_**It's time. I'm ready!**_

There was the strangest, muffled ripping sound from the center of her body. She gasped and shuddered violently. Then she went totally limp, slumping toward the floor. Rosalie caught her in the same instant, before she could fall. I was there, too, hands out, the mess on the sofa forgotten.

"Bella?" I asked, and then I heard _**LOOK OUT, WORLD, HERE I COME!**_, and I began to panic.

A moment later, Bella screamed. It was not just a scream, it was a blood-curdling shriek of agony. The horrifying sound cut off with a gurgle, and her eyes rolled back into her head. Her body twitched, arched in Rosalie's arms, and then Bella vomited a mouthful of blood.

* * *

**A/N: In case anyone was wondering, I think I have discovered the most romantic bit of text that Meyer has ever written. The irony is that she never meant it to be romantic at all. Here it is, from page 251 of the PDF, in Jacob's POV:**

_I sighed big as I thought about what Leah wanted from me, because I knew now that she was going to get it. I was still pissed at her, but I couldn't ignore the fact that I could make her life easier. And—now that I knew her better—I thought she would probably do this for me, if our positions were reversed._

_It would be interesting, at the very least, and strange, too, to have Leah as a companion—as a friend. We were going to get under each other's skin a lot, that was for sure. She wouldn't be one to let me wallow, but I thought that was a good thing. I'd probably need someone to kick my butt now and then. But when it came right down to it, she was really the only friend who had any chance of understanding what I was going through now._

_I thought of the hunt this morning, and how close our minds had been for that one moment in time. It hadn't been a bad thing. Different. A little scary, a little awkward. But also nice in a weird way._

_I didn't have to be all alone._

_And I knew Leah was strong enough to face with me the months that were coming. Months and years. _

See? She can write real romance; she just doesn't recognize it when she does. Either that, or she refuses to let it play out naturally, because she has an aversion to natural romance.


	14. Birth

**This chapter is terribly short, but I thought it was necessary given what happens; I really thought it should stand on its own.**

* * *

_**Want. Out. Now. **_Each word was punctuated by a limb kicking or punching outward.

Bella's body, streaming with red as capillaries burst and leaked out through her pores, started to twitch, jerking around in Rosalie's arms like she was being electrocuted. All the while, her face was blank; she was unconscious. It was the wild thrashing from inside the center of her body that moved her. As she convulsed, sharp snaps and cracks sounded from under her skin.

Rosalie and I were stunned for a moment, and then Rosalie whipped Bella's body into her arms, and, shouting so fast it was hard to separate the individual words. She shot up the staircase to the second floor, with me right behind her. Jacob followed right on our heels.

"Morphine!" I yelled at Rosalie. Bella's muscles were way too tense right now; her entire body could shut down from the strain.

"Alice—get Carlisle on the phone!" Rosalie screeched.

The lights in the room were brilliant and white. Bella was on a table under the glare, skin ghostly in the spotlight. Her body flopped, a fish on the sand. She occasionally cried out softly, even while unconscious. Rosalie pinned Bella down, yanking and ripping her clothes out of the way, while I stabbed a syringe full of painkiller into her arm.

"What's _happening_, Edward?"

_**Can't breathe...**_

"He's suffocating!"

"The placenta must have detached!"

_**HELP ME, MOMMY! DON'T LET ME DIE!**_

Suddenly, Bella came around. She responded to the little monster's prompt with a shriek that pierced our ears. "Get him OUT!" she screamed. "He can't BREATHE! Do it NOW!" Her eyes went red where they weren't bloodshot.

"The morphine hasn't kicked in yet!" I said.

"NO! NOW—!" Another gush of blood choked off what she was shrieking. I held her head up, desperately trying to clear her mouth so that she could breathe again.

Alice darted into the room and clipped a little blue earpiece under Rosalie's hair. Then she backed away, her gold eyes wide and burning, while Rosalie hissed frantically into the phone. In the bright light, Bella's skin seemed more purple and black than it was white. Deep red was seeping beneath the skin over the huge, shuddering bulge of her stomach. Rosalie's hand came up with a scalpel.

"Let the morphine spread!" I shouted.

"There's no time," Rosalie hissed. "He's dying!" She was more worried about Bella's spawn than about Bella. Her hand came down on Bella's stomach, and vivid red spouted out from where she pierced the skin, then a thin stream ran down her side. Bella jerked, but didn't scream. She was still choking. Then Rosalie lost her focus. I saw the expression on her face shift, saw her lips pull back from her teeth and her black eyes glint with thirst.

"No, Rose!" I roared, but my hands were trapped, trying to prop Bella upright so she could breathe.

Jacob saw it, too. He launched himself at Rosalie, jumping across the table. As he hit her body, knocking her toward the door, the scalpel in her hand stabbed deep into his arm. His palm smashed against her face, locking her jaw and blocking her airways. He kicked her in the gut, and she flew into the door frame, buckling one side of it. The little speaker in her ear crackled into pieces. Then Alice was there, yanking her by the throat to get her into the hall.

Then it was over.

Jacob ripped the blade out of his arm.

"Alice, get her out of here!" I shouted. "Take her to Jasper and _keep _her there! Jacob, I need you!"

He wheeled back to the operating table, where Bella was turning blue, her eyes wide and staring.

"Know CPR?" I demanded.

"Yes!"

"Get her breathing! I've got to get him out before—"

Another shattering crack inside her body, the loudest yet, so loud that we both froze in shock waiting for her answering shriek. Nothing. Her legs, which had been curled up in agony, now went limp, sprawling out in an unnatural way.

_**Not so tough. **_The way it was said, so flippant, so disdainful, made me freeze in horror. This creature had not an ounce of care or gratitude for Bella, despite the fact that she guarded it literally with her life. If it didn't even care about Bella...?

"What was that?" Jacob cried.

"Her spine," I choked in horror. This thing was systematically battering her to pieces from the inside!

"Get it _out _of her!" Jacob snarled, flinging the scalpel at me. "She won't feel anything now!" Then Jacob bent over her head and began artificial respiration. I could hear her heart, pumping unevenly. _Keep it going, _Jacob thought fiercely at her, blowing another gust of air into her body. _You promised. Keep your heart beating. _

This baby was now effectively trapped inside the giant, very resilient bag that was the placenta. It could expand the bag, kicking out and mutilating Bella's insides, but for some reason couldn't penetrate the bag itself. Someone else would have to do it. And, as the doting husband, that someone would be me. I took a deep, steadying breath before leaning down and _chewing_ through Bella's insides. I cannot imagine a more disgusting or life-changing-in-all-the-wrong-ways experience. The sound jolted Jacob, unexpected and terrifying as it was. Like metal being shredded apart. He glanced over to see me, face pressed against the bulge. Vampire teeth—a surefire way to cut through vampire skin.

He shuddered as he continued breathing for Bella. She coughed back at him, her eyes blinking, rolling blindly, trying to breathe on her own. "You stay with _me _now, Bella!" he yelled at her. "Do you hear me? Stay! You're not leaving me. Keep your heart beating!"

Her eyes wheeled, looking for me, or him, but seeing nothing.

I finally managed to make an opening wide enough, and drew the spawn out of her.

_**Thank you, **_**daddy****_._**

And then her body was suddenly still, though her breathing picked up roughly and her heart continued to thud.

I whispered the name she had chosen, "Renesmee." Bella had been wrong. It wasn't the boy she'd imagined. No big surprise there. What _hadn't _she been wrong about?

Bella lifted her hands lift weakly. "Let me…," she croaked in a broken whisper. "Give her to me." She held her up to her face for a moment, "Renes… mee. So… beautiful."

I didn't think it would be a big deal; it seemed that the worst was over now, for everyone. So I didn't quite expect it when she turned on her protector and life-giver, clamping onto her skin to suck even more blood out of her.

And then Bella gasped in pain.

I snatched the warm, bloody thing out of her limp arms. "No, Renesmee," I muttered.

She stared into my eyes. _**But I'm hungry. Give me what I want.**_

Almost before I realized it, I started to hand her back to Bella. A moment later I noticed what I was doing, and immediately decided to get her-_it_-out of the room.

_**Give me what I want, father. Mommy always did. **_I quickly looked back at her while a horrifying thought took form in the back of my mind.

I didn't notice when Bella took her last breath. When, with a last dull _b__a-dump_, her heart faltered and went silent. She missed maybe half of one beat, and then Jacob's hands were on her chest, doing compressions. He counted in his head, trying to keep the rhythm steady. _One. __Two. Three. Four._ Breaking away for a second, he blew another lungful of air into her.

"What are you waiting for?" he choked out breathlessly, pumping her heart again. _One. __Two. Three. Four._

"Take the baby," I said quietly, urgently. "Throw it out the window."

_One. Two. Three. Four._

"Give her to me," a low voice chimed from the doorway.

Jacob and I snarled at the same time. _One. Two. Three. Four._

"I've got it under control," Rosalie promised. "Give me the baby, Edward. I'll take care of her until Bella . . ."

I looked at her, and abruptly realized that she wouldn't let me harm this thing; my options were to give it up to Rosalie, or suffer bodily damage, maybe even death, and _then_ give it up to Rosalie.

I went with option one.

Jacob still breathed for Bella again while the exchange took place. I went to retrieve our "vamping fail-safe."

"Move your hands, Jacob."

He looked up from Bella's eyes, still pumping her heart for her. I had a syringe in my hand.

"What's that?" he asked.

Without answering I knocked his hand out of the way. There was a tiny crunch as the blow broke one of his fingers. In the same second, I plunged the needle straight into her heart. "My venom," I finally answered as I pushed the plunger down.

Her heart jolted.

"Keep it moving," I ordered.

Jacob obeyed, for once, and started pumping her heart again. It was harder now, as if her blood was congealing there, thicker and slower. While he continued pulsing her heart, he watched me, probably in morbid fascination.

I didn't know if quantity amounted to quality in this case, but I figured it couldn't hurt, either. I bit her, again and again, at her throat, at her wrists, into the crease at the inside of her arm, forcing venom into her system at as many points as possible.

Jacob blew more air into her mouth, but there was nothing there. Just the lifeless rise of her chest in response. He kept pumping her heart, counting, while I worked manically over her. Or worked her over, whichever would be appropriate in this case. I didn't even know anymore.

Working over a corpse.

Because that's all that was left of the girl we both wanted. This broken, bled-out, mangled corpse. We couldn't put Bella together again. I knew it could be too late. I knew she was dead, and I didn't know if she would rise again. Jacob felt sure because the pull was gone. He didn't feel any reason to be here beside her. _She _wasn't here anymore.

So this body had no more draw for him. That seemed odd to me. Shouldn't he have felt numb, or just this side of crazy sadness, or something? Instead, suddenly he felt the pull from the opposite direction. From down the stairs, out the door. The longing to get away from here and never, ever come back.

_Psh. Whatever. _ "Go, then," I snapped, and hit his hands out of the way again, taking his place this time. More fingers broken, it sounded like. Good.

I pushed her dead heart faster than Jacob had. "She's not dead," I growled. "She's going to be fine." I wasn't sure who I was talking to anymore.

Turning away, leaving me with Bella, Jacob walked slowly to the door. He felt empty again, now that he'd lost his purpose, which was saving Bella. She wouldn't be saved. She'd willingly sacrificed herself to be torn apart by that my unexpected progeny, and so the fight was lost. It was all over.

I followed his progress in one corner of my mind. I just had a feeling that somehow this really wasn't over, Bella's predicament aside.

Jacob shuffled down the stairs like a crippled old man.

He rested at the bottom step, gathering his strength to get out the door and leave for good.

Rosalie was on the clean end of the sofa, her back to the doorway, cooing and murmuring to the blanket-wrapped thing in her arms, caught up in her moment of stolen motherhood. Rosalie had what she wanted, and Bella would never come to take the creature from her. I wondered if that's what she had been hoping for all along.

She held something dark in her hands, and there was a greedy sucking sound coming from the tiny murderer she held.

Human blood. Rosalie was _feeding_ it. Of course it would want blood. What else would you feed the kind of monster that would brutally mutilate its own mother? It might as well have been drinking Bella's blood.

Jacob's strength came back as he listened to the sound of the little executioner feeding. Strength and hate and rage washed through him, burning but erasing nothing. He began imagining ways to do away with the little monster, getting more elaborate and complicated, but always with the same goal in mind.

Rosalie was totally absorbed in the creature, paying no attention to anything else. She wouldn't be quick enough to stop him, distracted as she was. _Sam is right. The thing is an aberration—its existence goes against nature. A black, soulless demon. Something that has no right to be._

Something that had to be destroyed.

It seemed like the pull had not been leading to the door after all. He could feel it now, encouraging, tugging him forward. Pushing him to finish this, to cleanse the world of this abomination.

He was vaguely aware Rosalie would try to kill him when the creature was dead, and he didn't much care either way. All he cared about was his own justice. _His_revenge.

_Well, more power to ya, wolf boy, _I thought idly, still pumping Bella's heart steadily.

The thing that had killed Bella would not live another minute longer. Jacob was determined to make that thought a reality. He figured I must be too busy now—too far gone in insane denial, trying to reanimate a corpse—to stop his plans. Bella wouldn't like it, of course, but as far as Jacob knew, she was dead, so who cared? Nobody Jacob was concerned about.

It seemed only a second had passed as he made these easy decisions. The trembling was getting tighter and faster. He coiled himself, preparing to spring at Rosalie and rip the murderous thing from her arms with his teeth.

Rosalie cooed at the creature again, setting the empty metal bottle-thing aside and lifting the creature into the air to nuzzle her face against its cheek.

Perfect. The new position was perfect for his strike. He leaned forward and felt those white-hot emotions begin to change him while the pull toward the killer grew—it was stronger than he'd ever felt it before, so strong it reminded him of an Alpha's command.

This time he _wanted _to obey.

_**Daddy, it's my birthday, **_I suddenly heard. That spawn was deliberately speaking directly to me. **_Do you know what I've wanted for a while, now? A PUPPY._**

_Oh, no. **Jacob!**_

Her eyes locked onto Jacob's over Rosalie's shoulder, and found the weakest part of Jacob's _self. _She somehow discovered the longing, the desire he'd had to Imprint when he borrowed the car and took it for a long drive only a day ago_. _

His shaking jerked to a stop; he froze as Renesmee caught his gaze and began speaking into his mind, holding him in thrall with those damnable eyes. I don't think he even knew the exchange was taking place.

_**Hello, wolf boy.**_

_What is this?_

_**I'm looking into you, right down to the center. What do you **_**think****_ is happening? _**The strength of her hold on him allowed her to hear his thoughts faintly, if only for a short time.

_Is this...Imprinting? Is this what it feels like to Imprint on another?_

She seized on that opening. _**Yes! I am your one, your destiny.**_

_You are...everything now..._

**_Yes, my beloved, _everything...**

And then the tendrils of her ruthless will wrapped around his fragile, broken heart.

It was manipulation and mind control of the worst kind. She could apparently dominate broken, weak-willed, or unguarded individuals. She knew where she stood right now, and had worked her mojo on Rosalie already, getting to her through her yearning to have a child. Well, now she had one, and it had seized control of her will. Who knew how many others she'd gained control over?

* * *

_**Please**_** tell me this is one of the creepiest things you've read (or at least that you've read by me); that means I've done it right!**

**For a comparison of Jacob and Imprinting or whatever, here's the source material, pg. 269 of the PDF:**

_Everything inside me came undone as I stared at the tiny porcelain face of the half-vampire, half-human baby. All the lines that held me to my life were sliced apart in swift cuts, like clipping the strings to a bunch of balloons. Everything that made me who I was—my love for the dead girl upstairs, my love for my father, my loyalty to my new pack, the love for my other brothers, my hatred for my enemies, my home, my name, my self—disconnected from me in that second—snip, snip, snip—and floated up into space._

_I was not left drifting. A new string held me where I was._

_Not one string, but a million. Not strings, but steel cables. A million steel cables all tying me to one thing—to the very center of the universe. I could see that now—how the universe swirled around this one point. I'd never seen the symmetry of the universe before, but now it was plain._

_The gravity of the earth no longer tied me to the place where I stood. It was the baby girl in the blond vampire's arms that held me here now._

_Renesmee._

_From upstairs, there was a new sound. The only sound that could touch me in this endless instant._

_A frantic pounding, a racing beat…_

_A changing heart._

**Now, given that, is it any wonder I modified it the way I did? It was almost obvious by this point.**


	15. Fun with Stakes

**Finally, the scene we've all been waiting for (or at least I have).**

* * *

Now that Bella had started the process of becoming a vampire, it was time to implement the final stage of my plan: binding her inexorably to me. There was one problem: I had no idea how to go about it. So I went to the person I knew could help.

I lightly rapped on the door of Carlisle's study. "Carlisle? You busy?" I poked my head around the door to find Carlisle examining a stack of sheets, one by one. He would stare at one intently and mutter, "fascinating," every single time, before putting the current one in the back and gazing at the next one. Every single time. "Carlisle?" I prompted again.

He started, almost dropped the stack of papers he was looking at. "Oh, yes, Edward?" I had actually startled him. _Nobody _startled Carlisle, human or vampire, especially in his own house. What was going on here?

"Bella's going through the change now, and I need your help. You know, tell me what to do, help me understand the whole 'bonding' process."

He raised his eyebrows. "Oh, that's what this visit is about? Yes, yes, you'll do fine, don't worry about it, Edward." He went back to his study material.

That was it? That _couldn't _be it. Carlisle was making such a big deal about it before, and now he's acting like it's easy, or that it will just take care of itself? This made no sense. I had to concentrate to not stomp while I walked over to gain his full attention. I snatched the papers out of his hands. "Carlisle, I'm being ser-" I stared in confusion and some disbelief when I caught sight of what he had been examining. I looked over the top at Carlisle. "These..." I flipped through them. "All these are pictures of Bella's...progeny." Different angles and poses-sleeping, smiling, yawning, eating, frowning, but all of Renesmee. "You're looking at pictures of Renesmee."

He looked at me condescendingly. "And you're observant. Congratulations, Edward."

I felt like gritting my teeth at his tone, but I didn't want him to get the upper hand, not this time. "_Why _are you looking so intently at pictures of that...baby?" I amended when he raised on eyebrow.

"The question is, why aren't you?" He plucked the pctures from my hands and began looking at them again. "Don't you think she is such a fascinating specimen?"

"I...guess?"

"Isn't she just the most wonderful baby you've ever laid eyes on? She's already so smart, and understands so much...she's practically perfect in every way."

I took a few slow steps toward the door. "Carlisle? You're scaring me. And you haven't done _that_ in decades." _Embarassed and humiliated, yes, but not truly scared._ "What's up?"

He looked at me in surprise. "Why, nothing's 'up,' Edward, except that we just added a new member to our family and she may be the most amazing one yet."

"Oh, right, of course," I agreed, inching myself toward the door. "I just thought there might be something else we have to do, y'know, something concerning Bella, and me?"

"What could that be?" He seemed genuinely confused by my suggestion. "She's already given birth..." He narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying you have something more important than Renesmee's welfare to see to right now?" he asked suspiciously.

"No!" His current attitude allowed for no other answer.

"Then why are you edging away toward the door?" His gaze flicked between the study's entrance and me.

"Well, that's...because...yes, I mean no, there's nothing more important then Renesmee right now, and...she's quite amazing, so I want to see her again, but I don't have my own pictures," I gestured to his stack of photos, "like you do, so I have to settle for the real thing, and she's not here, so I'm going to go where she is...now." _Dammit Edward, could you have BEEN any more stupid or obvious? No way he bought that; a child could see right through you._

Carlisle visibly relaxed. "Of course, that's all right, Edward, go ahead and find her, don't let me stop you."

I just stared at him for a second before exiting the room. I made it a few steps down the hallway before leaning back against a wall. What. The hell. Was _that_?

* * *

After minute or two to regain my composure, I made my way down the stairs. I felt about the house mentally, reading other people's minds and gauging their moods in regard to recent events.

Guess what they were all thinking about. More specifically, whom.

_She's so wonderful..._

_Can't believe what a miracle she is..._

_What a beautiful child..._

_Don't know what Rosalie's all excited about, but if she's happy..._

_...no...Who knew I would imprint on such an amazing girl...let me go..._

There was some corner that of Jacob's mind that was aware of what had happened, didn't want it to happen, but was helpless to put a stop to it. I could empathize with Jacob on that score. I felt the same way about being bound to Carlisle, except it wasn't buried, and Carlisle laughed at me about it on a fairly regular basis. This happened to those wolf-boys, and to more than one? No wonder they seemed so dysfunctional all the time.

I abruptly put aside my musings when I heard one more thought trickle in from somewhere around the house.

_...can't _see_, don't know who to trust...even Jasper...gotta kill her...how? Jasper will protect her..._ Alice! Her thoughts were interspersed with phrases from "When the Saints Go Marching In," no doubt in an effort to keep me from reading her thoughts. She was lucky she _could_ trust me in this case; she kinda sucked at keeping me out of her head.

I looked around until I found her, perched in a tree about 50 yards from the house.

"Now that's the oddest looking squirrel I've ever seen," I called up in lieu of a greeting.

_Oh good lord. _"What do you want, Edward?"

"I just thought you might like to know there's at least one person besides you who has remained in their right mind."

"Tch." She stood up, paused a second for balance, then dropped from the branch, caught another about halfway down, swung all the way around into a flip, and continued her controlled fall, landing on the forest floor as lightly and gracefully as any gymnast. She stomped over to me, leaving footprints half an inch deep in the ground, stopping when she was practically toe-to-toe with me, and glared up at me, hands on hips. She stared right in my eyes for several minutes before she relaxed and her expression melted into a smile. "Oh, I'm so relieved she didn't get you too."

I smiled right back. "What gave me away?"

She took a step back so she wasn't craning her neck so much to look at me. "The lack of a vacant, dreamy grin on your face, or course."

"What, you mean this?" I asked, doing my best imitation of Carlisle's face from a while ago. I saw stars when Alice socked me in the nose. "Ow! Fuck! What was _that_ for?"

"Don't even joke about that, Edward! It's not funny, it's fucking creepy, and if Jasper hadn't been one of the first to get caught up in the hell-spawn loving, he and I would have hightailed it out of here long before now."

The frank way she said that sobered me right up again. "So, now that it's likely just the two of us against-" I gestured to the house, "what do we do?"

She cocked her head, concentrating on her power. "Bella could help...maybe...if."

"If? If what?"

"_If_ you can bind her to you. But that's a pretty big if. I can only see one path that leads that way. The others..."

"Yes?"

"Worst case scenario: she turns the tables on you and you end up bound to her. The stress of being bound to two vampires tears your mind apart and makes you go insane."

It took a moment before I realized my jaw had dropped open. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"What other options do we have?"

"Right now? Wait. Watch. Seize any opportunities that present themselves."

"You wait. You watch. I'm going to go seize the opportunity I have right now." I turned and marched back to the Cullen house.

"Good luck," she called softly after me. "I hope you succeed. It would be fun to see you go insane, but I want my Jasper back more."

* * *

I went down to the Rumpus Room, where I had deposited Bella's rigid body after the venom had truly taken hold over her. I stared down at her, uncertain of where to begin. Carlisle had never gotten around to telling me exactly how he had bound us together, aside from him being the one who turned me. Finally I just decided to go the direct route. _**Bella, you are now bound to me. You will obey me in every way. **_I paused to see how this declaration had affected her. No response.

I tried again, in a more ritual-sounding way this time. _**Bella Swan, I bind you to me, your will to mine. From this day onward, my will supersedes yours, and you will never escape me. **Oh for fuck's sake, that sounded even more stupid than the first one._

_**Alice? **_I called.

"Yes?"

I jumped when she answered from right behind me. I knew vampires were fast, but- "Will you help me with this?"

"How?"

"Ideas. How can I do this, are there any resources we can look into that might help with this?"

She cocked her head. "Jasper told me about what you found on the island...I wonder if he has anything like that here?"

"I don't think a weapons cache is going to help with this particular situation, Alice."

"Right. Because that's _all_ you found there."

"Uh, _yeah_. Well, that and..." I slapped my forehead. "Of course! The journals! Alice, you're a godsend!" I paused. "Wait. Where would Carlisle keep things like his journals?"

"Well, where were they on the island?"

"Underneath...his office."

"So here they would probably be...?"

I groaned. "_In_ his office. The place that he currently doesn't leave, because he likes the solitude, but still never stops looking at..."

"What? Edward, what?"

"It could be...he's not as sharp now as usual..." That's_ an understatement. _"Maybe I can squirrel away something like that, if it's there."

Alice closed her eyes for a moment. "You should do it. Make up something to get him out of the room, though. He won't let you root around in his desk as long as he's in there." So it was in his desk.

"I think I know just the thing."

I went back up to Carlisle's office. _He was still looking at those same pictures!_ Suddenly I had my distraction. "Carlisle, what are you doing?"

He looked at me disdainfully. "I thought we'd already been over this, Edward."

"No, what I mean is, those pictures are _so_ yesterday. Do you have any idea how much she's changed since you took those?"

"Has she changed that much since then?" he asked, his eyes alight with interest.

"Well, yeah. I mean, have you even taken her measurements?" I nearly choked on my next statement. "Do you really think there's a thing she isn't capable of?"

A look of realization lit up Carlisle's features. "You're right, Edward, I haven't even measured her! Where has my mind been?"

"Well, you _were_ occupied." I gestured to his photographs.

"Yes, but that's no excuse. You'll have to excuse me," he said as he left.

I figured I had a couple minutes at most to find what I was looking for. I hurriedly opened every drawer and rifled through the contents, but didn't find anything like the journals we read back on the island. Alice said they were in the desk...maybe they weren't readily accessible? I looked underneath, where the occupant's legs were intended to go, and there it was: a depression in the wood, almost invisible. I pressed it carefully, and a panel slid aside. I felt around and found switch. It felt like it would move either right or left. I moved it right. _Swit!_ I felt something on my finger, then a soft sound on the floor. The tip of my finger lay there. That paranoid sadist! I quickly moved the switch left, and the entire bottom of the desk flipped down on hinges as something fell out. Two thin bundles of paper now lay on the floor, along with my severed finger.

Movement on the stairs.

I gathered everything up as quickly as I could (including my finger, dammit) and closed the hatch. It fell open. I put it up again. It fell again. _Shit! _I had to close it a certain way. I held it closed and found the switch again. _Damn, was it left or right? _I thought it had been left, so I tried that way. _Swit! _THAT SADISTIC, LIZARD-LICKING, PARANOID BASTARD! I slid the switch right, and the depression went to its original place. I gathered up my _other_ finger and stood up, barely making it to the other side of the desk and in front of a bookcase before Carlisle walked in.

He glanced at me. "What are you up to over there?"

"Oh, just...research. Researching...things." _Wow, Edward, you're a fount of convincing stories today, aren't you? _I stood with one hand behind my back, the one with the severed fingers, pressed against my waist so the venom wouldn't drip on the floor. I hoped Carlisle wouldn't look under his desk.

He nodded. "Good. Scholarly pursuit is a worthy goal. But don't neglect Renesmee, of course."

"Of course not." We stood staring at each other for a moment longer. "Well, gotta go," I said, and left the room as quickly as I dared, facing Carlisle the whole way so he couldn't my other hand.

After I reattached my severed digits and they had healed to a tolerable state, Alice and I pored over the manuscripts until she found the entry we were looking for. It had a title: "On Binding a Vampire's Will." I read in breathless anticipation.

_In my experiences observing relationships between vampires, and changing various people into them myself, I noticed a trend present in many, but not all, offspring. Some I observed appeared to do things they didn't want to, solely on the order of the one who changed them. They were also able to perceive when their changers required their presence, without any special abilities such as the one possessed by Edward. I took to calling this "binding" since the changed seemed anchored to the changer's will. Eventually I discovered, through some trial and error, that the secret to binding one vampire to another was..._

I quickly turned the page.

_...surprisingly easy after I had figured it out once. It's a very handy phenomenon that I will no doubt exploit many times in the future._ I snatched the pad from Alice and read the next entry; nothing about binding. I turned the page back; nothing on that one had changed. I quickly flipped through the rest of the journal. _It wasn't there! _My best hope of a walk-through, or even a clue, of how to bound Bella to me had fallen through without even a hint.

I dropped the pad sighed heavily. "Now what?"

"I've done all I can. You have fun," Alice said, skipping away.

I went back to Bella. _**Why don't you just do what I say, you selfish bitch? **_I didn't really think that would work, but it helped me relieve some tension. I finally continued doing what I'd started before: speaking and communicating at random and hoping something took.

I lost count of how many things I tried to say and my methods of delivery, from supplication to thundering decrees, from speaking telepathically to whispering, even shouting, in her ear. Once or twice I thought I heard some answering response from Bella, but I was never sure. Most of the time I felt like I was yelling into a void, or a hole so deep that the sound dissipated before it could echo back.

After several hours I got fed up and went up to my room and flopped down onto the couch. I felt like an idiot. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, and the only person around here who _did_ was a little...indisposed lately, probably making Renesmee scrapbooks by now. At this point I could just see him carefully selecting just the right stickers for each page. He would never have the gift for scrap-booking that I did. I might have asked Rosalie as well, except that she was more taken by that baby than Carlisle was, probably second only to Jacob, the poor doting prisoner.

I kept trying sporadically over the next day or so, hours of doing whatever I thought might work to bind Bella interspersed with an hour of rest, give or take. This mental exercise was exhausting. I didn't think I had ever exerted myself this much in such a short period of time before. If I had, I couldn't remember when. And I had no idea if what I was doing had any effect on Bella at all.

* * *

It was a couple days after Renesmee was born that it happened.

_**Edward. **_A faint mental call, I thought it was Bella's, in my head. _Hm?_

_**Edward. **_Yes, that was definitely her, calling out to me, though I hoped she wasn't aware of it. That would indicate some lack of control on her part. _**Edward, where is my child? Where is Renesmee? **_And now she was quite aware.

_** Don't worry, Bella, Rosalie has her. **_I was not afraid to reveal my mental abilities anymore, now that she was turned. She was still just barely conscious, though, and not yet mobile. That would turn out to be a good thing.

_**That's good, **_she thought, relieved.**_ Now bring her to me._**

_**We can't allow that.**_

_**...What did you say? **_Her thoughts suddenly took on an angry, dangerous tone.

I rushed down to where she was lying, and began speaking aloud to her still form. "I said we can't allow that. For all we know, you may attack her, even kill her."

_**Edward, I want to see Renesmee as soon as I can move.**_

"Well, I can't and won't allow that." _** Stop defying me, **_I ordered.

_**I will be able to move soon. The first thing I will do is either dominate you or destroy you. **_The cold, matter-of-fact way she thought that made me stop cold. She wasn't running this by me or even trying to see how I would react. She was just telling me this, with the same tone she would use to say she needed to get a new pair of shoes because the ones she had now were worn out. She had already considered everything.

_**YOU WILL NOT. **_I put as much mental force behind the thought as I could. **_I TURNED YOU, _MY_ VENOM POISONED YOU, YOU ARE BOUND TO ME NOW, YOU WILL-_**

_**Psh. **_The simple way she shook off what I thought would be a crippling amount of domineering force rocked me to my core. There was no way she could do that. There _shouldn't_ have been. _**You and what army? Is Carlisle going to help you? I don't think so. I was **_**your****_ project, right? I think you're on your own. I've felt your feeble attempts to control me through my mind, and I am quite able to shut them out, thank you very much._**

She was right. At least, she was right as far as I could tell. This entire business was going downhill. _None_ of this was going the way I planned. If things kept on as they were going, I would be bound to her instead of the other way around. _Is that even _possible_? I'm already bound to Carlisle. What if she _did_ manage to...? _The thought made my mind race. There was only one way to make absolutely certain that Bella would not bring more displeasure into my existence: I would simply have to kill her.

Almost as soon as I thought that, a picture popped into my head, only it wasn't mine. The image was of the ceiling to the Rumpus Room, the lens pointed straight up at it. As often as I'd seen that myself, I knew what it was. Bella was waking up. She had opened her eyes. I didn't have long now. I sped down the the Rumpus Room where she was laying prone, searched frantically for something to help me with what I had decided to do next. We had all manner of torture devices geared toward pain and pleasure down here; there had to be _something_.

_**Just a little more...**_Bella was testing her movement.

I raced upstairs to consult our resident expert on newborn vampires. "Jasper!" I yelled as I burst into Renesmee's room."

"What?" he answered irritably. "Where's the fire, Edward?"

"There is none yet, but we'll have to make one, and soon."

Then he turned to look at me. "What do you mean?"

"It's Bella. She waking up, and she's crazy."

"How crazy?"

I latched onto the first thing I thought of that would persuade him to come with me. "She's planning to kill Renesmee."

Jasper gasped and sat up. Then he looked back down at Renesmee and relaxed again. "I'm sure you can handle it, Edward. There's no way she can take all of us."

I wasn't worried about all of us; I was worried about _me_. "Jasper, if you help with this, I will never call you 'Spazzper' again."

At that, he leaped right up. "Let's go."

The first thing he did was examine Bella's limbs. He smacked his forehead. "She's still unrestrained, Edward? Do you _want_ her to wake up and immediately kill us all? You get that end," he said, gesturing toward her feet. The metal bed on which she lay prone was already equipped with shackles on short chains, so we made short work of her hands and feet.

No sooner had I clicked my last cuff into place than Bella became fully awake. She pulled against the restraints, and I leaned against the wall and watched, smirking.

Until I heard a distinctive groaning sound and saw her limbs begin to pull against their restraints.

The Rumpus Room was equipped with all manner of tools conducive to bondage play and could cater to almost any vice any one of us could dream up-with a little creativity, of course. Since a vast majority of the occupants of that room were vampires, all the aforementioned equipment was designed to restrain our kind, and it did a very good job; not even Emmett could escape those bonds when they were properly applied. Here Bella was actually _bending the frame_, like Superman with a lead pipe. We had to work fast or she would kill us.

"Jasper?" I pleaded, backing quickly away.

"Over here!" he called from across the room. He pulled a sizable box from the corner. I looked inside and saw...a sampling of nearly everything we found in his laboratory on the island?

"Jasper...where?...how?...when?"

"When I came back, duh," he answered while rummaging through the box. "You don't survive decades of warfare without seizing the opportunities sent your way." Well, _that_ sounded familiar. "Catch!" Jasper tossed something to me.

He tossed it just a little harder than I anticipated. It pierced me in the chest and I fell like a sack of potatoes. I was completely paralyzed. _**Hey, SPAZZ, you wanna give me a **_**hand**_** here? **_I glared up at him from the floor.

"Now you're blaming me for your piss-poor reaction time? Prissy drama queen." He removed it anyway, and handed me the object.

I smiled when I saw that I held the wooden stake with a silvery tip. I also had to pause a moment to make sure I had total movement again; that stake did a number on me. I remembered what Carlisle had written about tools such as these:

"_Wooden stakes with vampire nails covering the points were unexpectedly effective, causing paralysis in limbs where the subject was stabbed, and total paralysis when stabbed through the heart." _

Judging from my experience a moment ago, that was apparently true.

_**Give me five minutes. **_The table groaned again from the stress of Bella's movements. "Stop struggling, bitch!" I cried as I rushed over and jammed the stake into Bella's pseudo-heart. She shrieked and continued pulling at her chains- still able to move. At least she wasn't bending the metal anymore, but she shouldn't have been able to move _at all_. "Jasper, I thought this was supposed to paralyze her?"

"Yeah, if you got her through the heart, you dunce!"

"I've taken enough anatomy classes to know where the human heart is, smartass!"

"Well, maybe newborns are just that much stronger, I don't know!"

"Jasper, let me up, please." Bella stopped struggling and now looked pleadingly at Jasper, twisting her neck as much as she could to do so. "I just want to see my daughter. Once I see she's all right, I'll go anywhere you want me to, do whatever you say, just let me-"

At that moment I found what I was looking for: the jar containing garlic preserves. It shattered when I threw it on the floor. Before Bella could determine what I was doing, I bent over her head, shoved a clove into her open mouth, and forced her jaw closed, releasing all the garlic fumes into her mouth and throat. I already knew that garlic didn't really have an adverse effect on our kind, but it was damn irritating when we got a full shot of it. Our senses were so acute that something that powerful just about knocked us out, or at least made us unable to smell anything for a good long while afterward. Bella screamed incoherently and started thrashing her head, thoroughly distracted by the sudden overwhelming odor. _**YOU SHIT-SUCKING BASTARD! I'LL KILL YOU! FIRST THING I DO!**_

"We don't need to hear any more out of you." I turned to Jasper. "See if you can find any slaying gear in there. You know, any knives or sharp blades."

"Yeah, I know what slaying gear is, Edward. I've been doing this far longer than you." He tossed me a dagger. "Try this."

I moved to straddle Bella in order to get a clean slice. She spit the garlic clove into my face. I lurched back and shook my head, reacting much the way Bella had. She took that opportunity to buck me off her, and I went sailing to the floor several feet away. Bella began pulling at her restraints in earnest, trying to get her hands together. If she could do that, she could get free.

I couldn't let that happen.

I scrambled to pick up the knife where it had fallen, and looked up just in time to see Bella's hands come together and rip off the chains that held them. Of course, now she had to get out of the cocoon she'd made by bending the frame around her. She did that with one outward thrust of her arms and quickly sat up-driving her neck into my waiting dagger as I leaped at her and severing her head from her body. The momentum from her movement knocked me to the floor at the foot of the warped table. Bella's feet were still chained up, which made for a rather grotesque slouching figure. Her head had fallen off the side of the table and now lay on the floor, eyes dead and unblinking in my direction.

* * *

I stared down at her corpse, standing as if next to a funeral pyre. A fitting image, I supposed. Carlisle came up beside me.

"That was a good decision, you know. Time for another lesson, Edward."

I jerked away from him, instantly on guard. He laughed. "Not that kind of lesson." He gestured toward her unmoving body. "You wouldn't have been able to control this one, because I'm fairly certain she was a natural."

I was sure my face betrayed my confusion. "What's a natural?"

He folded his hands behind his back, as if in quiet contemplation. "Some humans are born with darkness in their soul, and the vampire essence feeds on it when they are turned, and they become primal." He fell silent.

Great. He was going to make me ask. "OK, so what is a primal vampire?"

"Primal vampires are vampires that are more animal than sentient. They can speak, but they are more likely to act chiefly on instinct. Their existence is short and explosive. Most never make it out of the newborn stage. They cause such a commotion that every hunter and slayer within a hundred mile radius is drawn to them. James was one of these. I suspect Bella would have been, too. In that case, she would not have belonged to you. She would have _owned_ you. And I think you sensed that, didn't you?"

"I did, and now I find that terrifying. I just…heard in my mind, felt this power, this malevolence. It was dark, darker than anything I've felt, even from Alice in her mean streaks. And I didn't want it coming after me. I couldn't get past her mental barrier anymore."

Carlisle put his hand on my shoulder in a rare honest-to-goodness gesture of encouragement. "Maybe next time, hm? We'll scout out a better match for you, instead of choosing semi-randomly like we did this time. What do you say?"

"In a while."

He nodded, then left me to my thoughts.

Alice came up beside me next. She had that slightly evil gleam in her eyes, and I could tell she was in "that" kind of mood again.

"She's gone," she said in her dreamy seer's tone.

"Yes."

"We bonded, you know."

"I know. Sometimes I think you knew her even better than I did, and I could see into her mind."

"She would have been fun to 'play' with. We would have had fun together."

I had to smile at that. "Yeah…it wouldn't have been as much fun for me and Jasper, though, I'd wager."

"Well, I only said _she and I_ would have fun, after all," she clarified, flashing her bright smile. "Of course, neither of us will have fun as long as that damn baby is running the show. How do you beat something that captivates everyone they meet just by looking in their eyes?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. Take a page from Perseus' book and use a mirror?"

"Or find someone with no eyes?" Alice said sarcastically.

_No eyes? _I suddenly thought of someone. I took out my phone and the business card I'd kept for reasons I still didn't know, and dialed the number on it. She answered after the second ring.

"Hi, Olivia? I don't know if you remember me; this is Edward Cullen..."

* * *

**I toyed with the idea of letting Bella live, only in a hellish existence of some kind or another, but the whole point of starting this project in the first place was _this chapter right here_. Quite frankly, when I read about what a super-powered vamp Bella became, I thought the only logical thing that could happen was that she would be too strong for the Cullens to allow her to exist. That kind of person would be essentially uncontrollable, and not even the Volturi would stand for that. Well, it didn't happen, so I turned to fanfiction to make it happen. In my mind, it couldn't have happened any other way. And now we've got her spawn (who was seriously the creepiest offspring ever) to take care of. Alice wants her Jasper back, dammit!**

**Olivia's back in the story! Blow a trumpet, toot a horn, or sound a vuvuzela if this makes you happy!**

**Also, a cookie to anyone who can spot the (very minor) Growing Up Cullen reference! Tell me either in a review or PM, and I will award cookies at the start of next chapter.**

**On a different note, is there a way to change the font size of individual words, or are they all the same size by default on this site? Anyone know?**


	16. Simmering

**A/N: Apologies for the long hiatus, had to wait for inspiration to hit again. So, after months (or is it years?) of waiting, heeeeere's the next chapter!**

* * *

"Oh my gosh! Edward? From the train? I don't believe it!" Olivia practically yelled into the phone.

"Is it really so hard to believe? You gave me your card and everything."

"You can get 500 of those made for, like, ten bucks," she scoffed. "They're kind of a throwaway product, and you seemed pretty hung up on that girl back then. I figured you'd found her and made up, and more power to ya, but forget about that one girl you met that one time on that one train in Europe."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah, about her. She's kind of...gone."

"Like, ran away gone, or like..." My silence told her all she needed to know. "Oh Edward, I'm so sorry! What happened? When? How-"

"Say she lost her head," came a whisper from around the corner.

_How about I smack yours? _I thought to Alice the Eavesdropper. "She...died in childbirth." Eh, close enough.

"Oh my God she had a child? Is it yours?"

"Um, the baby was lost too." Renesmee was physically _way_ too old at this point to have been born before Bella died. Better to leave things at the plausible stage. "It happened a few months ago."

"Wow. Just...wow, I am so sorry to hear that. If there's anything I can do for you, just, y'know, let me know. I'm still surprised you're calling me though, it's not like we're besties or anything."

"Yeah, I just...you sounded really smart and were easy to talk to, and everyone around here is getting tired of me moping all the time."

"Anytime. Listen, I have to go now, but we'll talk later, k?"

"Ok. Good-bye, Olivia."

"Good-bye."

Thinking of Renesmee brought her to center-stage in my mind. So many questions. How exactly did her powers work? Was it through eye contact? Touch? She certainly demanded to be held enough, particularly by Wolf Boy. Maybe he was harder to control than the others. I wondered if I could use that.

I went to see Renesmee after the death of Bella, if only because I was morbidly curious about her. Rosalie was playing babysitter at the demon-child in Rosalie's arms had to be weeks, if not months, old. Except she wasn't. She was maybe twice the size of the baby in my memory, and she seemed to be supporting her own torso easily as she stretched toward me. Her shiny bronze-colored hair fell in ringlets past her shoulders. Her Bella-chocolate-brown eyes examined me with an interest that was not at all childlike; it was adult, aware and intelligent. She raised one hand, reaching in my direction for a moment, and then reached back to touch Rosalie's throat. She had Bella's eyes, and my hair, though the curls must have come from Bella's family. She was clearly Bella's. And mine. I wanted to vomit.  
Rosalie patted the hand against her neck and murmured, "Yes, that's her." Renesmee's eyes stayed locked on mine. Then, as she had just seconds after her violent birth, she smiled at me. A brilliant flash of tiny, perfect white teeth.

_Hello, Daddy. How's Mummy? Lost her head, did she? Poor thing._

Well, crap in a sandwich, she knew. Still, I took a step toward her.

Everyone moved very fast. Emmett and Jasper were right in front of me, shoulder to shoulder, hands ready. Even Carlisle and Esme moved to get Emmett's and Jasper's flanks, while Rosalie backed to the door, her arms clutching at Renesmee. Jacob moved, too, keeping his protective stance in front of them.

Alice was the only one who held her place.

"Oh, give him some credit," she chided them. "He wasn't going to do anything. You'd want a closer look, too."

"I'm okay," I promised. "What are you getting all heated up about? Who would want to hurt such a perfect child? Especially one so...non-threatening?"

Then the child in Rosalie's arms, struggling and reaching all this time while her expression got more and more irritated, let out a high, ringing wail. Everyone reacted as if they'd never heard her voice before. Come to think of it, maybe they hadn't. They swarmed around her in a second, leaving me standing alone, frozen in place. The sound of Renesmee's cry pierced right through me, spearing me to the floor. It seemed like everyone had a hand on her, patting and soothing. Everyone but me and Alice.

"What's the matter? Is she hurt? What happened?"

It was Jacob's voice that was loudest, that raised anxiously above the others. I watched, a little dismayed, as he reached for Renesmee, and then in utter horror as Rosalie surrendered her to him without a fight.

"No, she's fine," Rosalie reassured him. Rosalie was reassuring Jacob?

Renesmee went to Jacob willingly enough, pushing her tiny hand against his cheek and then squirming around to stare toward me again. Slowly, each one turned to stare at me with puzzled expressions. I could hear her in their heads, the wheels slowly churning. _He killed my mother. He thought she was a threat and he killed her. Now he perceives me, the innocent baby, to be a threat. He wants to hurt me._

They didn't quite believe it, or didn't want to, or still sensed there was something off about her declaration. Either way, nobody moved. I left before it could get more tense in there.  
I asked Carlisle about her once, to see if I could glean anything useful. He gave me what amounted to a laundry list of her physical characteristics.

"She is warm-blooded, and a heartbeat, thought it runs a little bit faster than a human's. Her temperature is a little bit hotter than usual, too. She sleeps."

"Really?"

"Quite well for a newborn, according to what I've read. The only guardians in the world who don't need sleep, and our child already sleeps through the night." He chuckled.

I barely restrained a physical recoil at the words _our child._ Like _he _had anything to do with her existence. Not that I was proud of my own contribution, but it still sent a chill up my spine.

"She has Bella's eyes-exactly her color-so that didn't get lost." He smiled. "They're so beautiful." The guy was two steps away from a hard-on, and over a _baby _no less. That is at the very least inappropriate, even for a vampire. _Eesh_.

"And the vampire parts?" I asked.

"Her skin seems about as impenetrable as ours. Not that anyone would dream of testing that."

I blinked at him, a little shocked. "Yeah, wouldn't want to harm the baby," I murmured.

"Of course no one would," he assured me again. "Her diet… well, she prefers to drink blood. I continue trying to persuade her to drink some baby formula, too, but she doesn't have much patience with it. Can't say that I blame her— nasty-smelling stuff, even for human food."

I gaped openly at him now. He made it sound like they were having conversations. "Persuade her?"

"She's intelligent, shockingly so, and progressing at an immense pace. Though she doesn't speak—yet—she communicates quite effectively."

"Doesn't...Speak...Yet." Oh shit. I had completely forgotten that that day would come. She was powerfully persuasive _now_? I didn't want her to get old enough to _speak_. Out loud.

I left the house and wandered out into the woods. I had to get out of there again, somewhere away from the madness inside.

_Halt! Who goes there? _ Cried a wolf sentry. Leah. I heard the padding of of paws on the forest floor, then a series of grinding and popping as she shifted forms. She took a defensive stance about twenty feet away.

For a moment I forgot to speak. She was, once again, completely nude, due to having just transformed. I was admittedly not the most suave guy around, but I had an intense appreciation for the female form. Especially when that female form had a natural cover-of-a-women's-fitness-magazine slimness to it, with lean muscle that practically rippled when she made a significant movement. I wanted a distraction, and her brazen near-exhibitionism definitely counted.

She snapped her fingers, almost in front of my face. I started. Had I really been daydreaming that deeply?

"Hel-lo! I asked what you're doing out here. Where's Jacob? We haven't seen him in days!"

"Things...have been happening."

"Oh, things, well that explains EVERYTHING."

"Tch. Sarcasm aside, there's something really cree-" I was interrupted by the "pop" of someone tranforming behind me. Jacob was finally out, probably to do some hunting of his own. He trotted our direction, then Leah stepped into his way.

"What's going on, Jacob? How come you were in there so long?"

He growled. Leah transformed and growled back. _You can't keep it a secret forever, Jacob! Seth and I deserve to know! Now what-? _She suddenly picked up on "what" through the wolves' telepathy. She leaned into a hunting crouch and took two slow steps forward toward Jacob. _You didn't,_ she snarled at him.

He backed away, head down, trying to reason with her. _You know it's not something we can control._

_You stupid mutt! How could you? A baby!_

_It wasn't like it was my idea! It was involuntary!_

A fearsome snarl ripped through Leah's teeth. _Don't even try it! There are not strong enough words to convey how sick and wrong that is!_

_SHUT UP! _Jacob suddenly roared through the link. He advanced toward Leah, suddenly aggressive. _Shut up shut up shut up! I'm the alpha! I'm the leader of this pack, small as it is, and you will NOT go against my orders!_ At that point he had backed her up against a tree. _You will NOT question me about this again, IS THAT CLEAR?_

Leah hunched over, head down and tail between her legs. _Yes, Alpha. _The words were reluctantly expressed.

_GOOD! _Jacob the wolf ran off, to finally do some hunting of his own

I couldn't help but stare off after him, wondering how to figure this into my as-of-yet-unrealized plans. After a few moments I realized Leah the wolf had come up beside me, a few feet away. Her height sitting matched mine standing.

_Did you hear him?_

"It was pretty loud and obvious, yeah."

She turned her peircing wolf's eyes on me. _That's not what I mean. He's still there; I could sense it. A part of him is screaming; it wants out of this whole mess. It was faint, but there nonetheless._

"Yeah, I sensed that once before. Actually thought it was my imagination."

_Is that freakish baby responsible for it? I just can't buy that Jacob would imprint on a non-human THING like that._

"Could be. We're still not sure what all that creature is capable of." I smirked. "And I could without a son-in-law."

Leah growled softly. _Don't even joke about that. We have to kill that baby._

"Truer words were never spoken. Amazingly, we're in agreement."

She glanced at me suspiciously. _You're going along with this pretty easily, vampire._

"Let's just say I have my own reasons. I don't like the way she has everyone in a vise-like, dreamy state all the time. I'm used to being more or less under Carlisle's control, but the thought someone else is manipulating _Carlisle_? Neither he nor I need that. Or the rest of us."

We sat in silence for several minutes. _Well, if there's anything I can do to help, let me know, and let me in on the plan._

"Will do. It's nice to have someone else around who's not fawning over that thing like she's God's gift to the world."

_Or to the wolf pack. Packs._

"Say what?"

_It seems the pack feud has ended. They have come to a truce. Know why? because the most absolute of all the pack's laws is that no wolf ever kill the object of another wolf's imprinting. _She said it as if quoting from a passage in a textbook. '_The pain of such a thing would be intolerable for the whole pack. The fault, whether intended or accidental, would not be forgiven; the wolves involved would fight to the death—there was no other option. Apparently it happened long ago, but only accidentally. No wolf would ever intentionally destroy a brother that way.' Note the concern for the girl who was KILLED, _she finished bitterly.

"Come again?" I looked at her, one eyebrow raised. Was she confiding in me about her issues with these wolves or something? I was not a psychiatrist, and I hadn't come out here to counsel some girl with an inferiority complex and issues with sexism.

_Psh. Whatever. I'm taking off; your stench is starting to get to me._ She padded away into the forest, and I went tback into the house to brood and be anywhere but in the same room with that baby. I couldn't leave; I was still bound to Carlisle, and he would just bring me back.

A few hours later, Jacob was back at the house. "Good news, everyone!" he annjounced as soon as he arrived. "The treaty is intact again. The other wolves will leave us alone!"

"Well that's great news!" Carlisle said. "How did you accomplish this?"

"Mostly I just explained the situation; how it _really _went down. Since Bella was changed with my consent as the Alpha of this territory, the treaty allows the change to have happened. And since I've Imprinted on Renesmee, they won't go after her either. It's one of the most sacred laws of the wolf pack: we must not kill another wolf's imprintee."

"Wonderful!" Rosalie exclaimed. "I guess you're good for something after all."

"Get bent, Leech."

"Go piss up a tree, dog."

"Now, kids, let's not fight in front of the baby," Carlisle chided.

"Carlisle, I think it's wonderful that they're getting along so well," Esme chimed in. There was a short silence as what she said sunk in, and everyone silently acknowledged that, once again, she had no idea what was actually going on. Esme just stood there with that same dopey smile on her face that she nearly always had.

Just then the grandfather clock chimed. "Oh, it's six!" Carlisle said, then darted upstairs. He came down the stairs with his hands full of odd things—a measuring tape,a scale. As if there was some signal I'd missed, even Alice sat down outside and stared through the window with an expression like she was expecting something that was both familiar and also totally uninteresting.

"What's so great about it being six o'clock?" I asked.

"Time to measure Renesmee," Carlisle explained.

"Oh. You do this every day?"

"Four times a day," Carlisle corrected absently as he motioned the others toward the couch. I thought I saw Renesmee sigh.

"Four times? Every day? Why?"

"She's still growing quickly," Alice murmured to me, her voice quiet and strained. She squeezed my hand, her other arm wrapped securely around the same arm, almost as if she needed the support.  
Renesmee's body was slightly longer. Just a little bit slimmer. Her face wasn't quite as round; it was more oval by one minute degree. Her ringlets hung a sixteenth of an inch lower down her shoulders. She stretched out helpfully in Rosalie's arms while Carlisle ran the tape measure down the length of her and then used it to circle her head.

I was aware that Jacob's arms were crossed as tightly over his chest. His heavy brows were mashed together into one line over his deep-set eyes.

She had matured from a single cell to a normal-sized baby in the course of a few weeks. She looked well on her way to being a toddler just days after her birth. If this rate of growth held…I had no trouble with the math.

"What do we do?" I whispered, horrified.

"It's slowing," Jacob muttered through his teeth.

"We'll need several more days of measurements to track the trend, Jacob. I can't make any promises," Carlisle said.

"Yesterday she grew two inches. Today it's less."

"By a thirty-second of an inch, if my measurements are perfect," Carlisle said quietly.

"_Be_ perfect, Doc," Jacob said, making the words almost threatening. Rosalie stiffened.

"You know I'll do my best," Carlisle assured him.

Jacob sighed. "Guess that's all I can ask."

Their obsession with her was beyond scary. I spent more and more time away from the house, silently aspologetic to Alice. I had only myself to worry about. She could have gotten out scott-free since she wasn't bound, but Jasper was her chosen mate; she wouldn't leave him behind. In her own words, "It's so troublesome to break in a new one."

About a week later, something happened that strengthened my resolve to do something about that demon spawn. I came back to the house after one of my little jaunts, to change clothes and clean up a little. On the way, still outside, I passed by the window that looked in on the room where the family usually kept Renesmee. She was awake, sitting up on the floor with Rose and Emmett hovering over her, playing with a little pile of twisted silverware. She had a mangled spoon in her right hand. As soon as she spied me through the glass, she chucked the spoon on the floor—where it left a divot in the wood—and pointed in my direction imperiously. Her audience laughed; Jasper, Esme, and Carlisle were sitting on the couch, watching her as if she were the most engrossing film. Now I was the family laughingstock. My punishment for not bowing to the will of the almighty baby, I guess. Alice at least willingly hung around, so I guess Renesmee was comfortable keeping an eye on her that way.

"Where're the wolves today?" I glanced out the window wall, but there had been no sign of Leah on the way in.

"Jacob took off this morning pretty early," Rosalie told me, a little frown creasing her forehead. "Seth followed him out."

"What was he so upset about?"

"I don't know—or care," Rosalie grumbled, but she answered Edward's question more fully. "He was watching Nessie sleep, his mouth hanging open like the moron he is, and then he just jumped to his feet without any kind of trigger—that I noticed, anyway—and stormed out. I was glad to be rid of him. The more time he spends here, the less chance there is that we'll ever get the smell out."

He didn't let on to anybody about what he was doing or where he was going, but what I could skim from his surface thoughts actually gave me a sliver of hope-nothing concrete, but I would keep my proverbial eye on it.

Meanwhile Renesmee was growing and changing literally by the day. She spoke her first word when she was exactly one week old. The word was Momma. She continued from her first word to her first sentence in the same breath. "Momma, where is Grandpa?" She looked at me with that familiar gleam in her eyes as she said "Momma." It gave me the urge to watch my back, not like I wasn't doing that anyway.  
When she walked for the first time, fewer than three weeks later, it was similar. She'd simply stared at Alice for a long moment, watching intently as her aunt arranged bouquets in the vases scattered around the room, dancing back and forth across the floor with her arms full of flowers, trying to "act natural." Renesmee got to her feet, not in the least bit shaky, and crossed the floor almost as gracefully. Jacob had burst into applause, because that was clearly the response Renesmee wanted. The way he was tied to her made his own reactions secondary; his first reflex was always to give Renesmee whatever she needed. But our eyes met, and I saw all the panic in mine echoed in his. I was glad I wasn't in his shoes.

At three months, Renesmee could have been a big one-year-old, or a small twoyear- old. She wasn't shaped exactly like a toddler; she was leaner and more graceful, her proportions were more even, like an adult's. Her bronze ringlets hung to her waist. She could not only walk but run and dance. She could even read. For me, that was the most terrifying development. Fastest way to get information and all that jazz.

I threw myself into research, and sometimes Carlisle helped, looking for any answers, anything to expect. There was very little to be found, and none of it verifiable. I was beginning to despair, to believe there would be nothing I could do to get myself and my dysfunctional family out of this mess, when a letter came, return address: the Volturi.

Until the day that Aro's note showed up, I didn't know that Alice had sent a wedding announcement to the Volturi leaders; we'd been far away on Esme's island when she'd seen a vision of Volturi soldiers—Jane and Alec, the devastatingly powerful twins, among them. Caius was planning to send a hunting party to see if Bella was still human, against their edict. So Alice had mailed the announcement, seeing that this would delay them as they deciphered the meaning behind it. But they would come eventually. That was certain. The threat was in the parting line of Aro's congratulatory note, written in black ink on a square of heavy, plain white paper in Aro's own hand:

**I so look forward to seeing the new Mrs. Cullen in person.**

An idea took hold. Aro was a collector—and his most prized treasures were his living pieces. He coveted beauty, talent, and rarity in his immortal followers more than any jewel locked in his vaults. It was unfortunate enough that he'd begun to covet Alice's and my abilities. Renesmee was clearly gifted and unique—she was one of a kind. Would one more extraordinary indivdual entice Aro enough to come visit the Cullens? I knew Aro would NOT be pleased that his colleague Carlisle was under some kind of mind control, and I would have to get to him first, to prevent him from becoming the next victim, but it could work-right?

I wandered around the forest, still engrossed in my tentative plans. While my thoughts were lost in the near future, my eyes swept the mountainside routinely, searching for prey, searching for danger. I didn't think about it; the urge was an automatic thing. As my eyes flitted across the edge of a distant cliff, standing out starkly blue-gray against the green-black forest, a glint of silver—or was it gold?—gripped my attention. My gaze zeroed in on the color that shouldn't have been there, so far away in the haze that an eagle wouldn't have been able to make it out. I stared.  
She stared back. Her sparkly white skin and stillness marked her as a hair was pale, pale blond, almost silver. This was the gleam that had caught my eye. It hung straight as a ruler to a blunt edge at her chin, parted evenly down the center. Irina had decided to come after all. A howl came from the forest, and her face spasmed in pain. She growled, but by the time the faint sound reached me, she had already turned and disappeared into the forest.

Now THIS was an interesting development. This lady vamp was out for revenge, but she couldn't take us all on, and she knew it. She had come to some decision just before she was out of my range, but I didn't know what it was. Well, whatever it was, it was bound to be interesting, and was probably just the distraction I was hoping for.

* * *

**Yes, as a matter of fact, I WAS going for a "Professor Farnsworth" feel with Jacob's announcement. Constructive criticism is appreciated, now and always!**


	17. BuildUp

**A/N: Got an amusing review question on the last chapter. It simply said, (paraphrasing) "what if your story is worse than Twilight?" Well, obviously I don't think so, otherwise I wouldn't have written this much or this far. And, well, anyone who has read this far doesn't think so either. ****I don't mind if there's people who don't like my writing. They can read it or not, it makes no difference to me. I'm just glad I can share my "alternate vision" with others who enjoy it, too.**

****** I got another recent review that said I had "a wicked sense of humor." Thanks for the compliment, madnessdownunder2! Half my reason for doing this was poking fun, just "for the lulz," and it's great to know I succeeded.**

******That said, on to the part you really want to read!**

* * *

I went back to the Cullen house and filled Alice in on who I'd seen and what had happened. She liked the possibilities Irina's appearance brought, too. Alice was able to catch a few glimpses of Irina's immediate future, but nothing too concrete. She wasn't going back to Denali, as far as Alice could tell. The picture was hazy; all she could see was that Irina was obviously upset. She wandered in the snow-swathed wilderness-to the north? maybe east?-with a devastated attitude. She was making no decisions for a new course beyond that directionless grieving.

In other words, Irina likely wouldn't be of any help to us any time soon. I put thoughts of that useless load on the backburner of my mind. It might amount to something in the future, but for now we had other things to think about. The Cullens were planning a little vacation, it seemed.

Every detail had been gone over almost before I knew it. We would start with the Ticunas, tracing their legends as well as we could at the source. Now that it was accepted that Jacob would come with us, he figured prominently in the plans—it was unlikely that the people who believed in vampires would speak to any of us about their stories. If we dead-ended with the Ticunas, there were many closely related tribes in the area to research. Carlisle had some old friends in the Amazon; if we could find them, they might have information for us, too. Or at least a suggestion as to where else we might go for answers. There was no way to know how long our search would take.

Emmett and Jasper were more excited about planning the hunting possibilities, if you could call that excited. They didn't really get truly excited about anything anymore, just a bit more energetic than the drooly handmaidens of Renesmee that they usually were. The Amazon offered a change from our normal quarry. Jaguars and panthers, for example. Emmett had a whim to wrestle with an anaconda, which was as close to his old self as I'd seen in weeks. Esme and Rosalie were planning what they would pack.

Jacob was off with Sam's pack, setting things up for his own absence. Lucky bastard, though he didn't seem to see it that way. No, wolf-boy was still Renesmee's biggest fan, followed closely by Carlisle. It seemed our clan leader spent all his free time marveling over the specialness that was Renesmee.

You never realize just how much you need the attention of others until quite suddenly you are soundly and deliberately ignored. Lately Carlisle never bothered with me for anything beyond making sure I stuck around; mostly he acted like I didn't exist, as did everyone else besides Alice. It was unnerving. I'd often wished to get away from this "clan" and many times begged Carlisle to leave me alone, but I'd never realized being completely left alone would be so...lonely. I missed the camaraderie we all had, as twisted as it was. I even found myself wishing that Carlisle would give me one of his "surprise embraces from behind," even one of the reach-around ones that always had me yelping in embarassingly high tones, just because it would show that Carlisle cared enough to make _sure _I was nervous and on edge and never _quite _completely relaxed.

The fact that I was wishing Carlisle to humiliate me made me abruptly want to hit my head against a wall. Hard. Repeatedly. Clearly I was in desperate straits here.

I stared at Renesmee while I debated internally. She was curled up on the sofa now, her breathing slow with heavy sleep, her tangled curls splayed wildly around her face. Every time that little monster smiled, I wanted to wipe it off her face. With a sledgehammer.

Alice moved slowly—for her—around the big room, unnecessarily tidying the already immaculate space, straightening Esme's perfectly hung garlands. She was re-centering Esme's vases on the console at the moment. Her face fluctuated—aware, then blank, then aware again—as she was searching the future. She was trying to see through the blind spots that Jacob and Renesmee made in her visions as to what was waiting for us in South America. She lifted one crystal vase that was filled with white and red roses and turned toward the kitchen. There was just the barest hint of wilt to one of the white flowers, but Alice seemed intent on utter perfection as a distraction to her lack of vision tonight.

I saw it an instant after she did. The vase slipped from Alice's fingers and shattered into ten thousand shards against the edge of the kitchen's marble were perfectly still as the fragmented crystal bounced and skittered in every direction with an unmusical tinkling, all eyes on Alice's eyes were halfway here and halfway locked on the future, wide, staring, filling her thin face till they seemed to overflow it. I could see her vision: a line of vampires, some familiar, some not, walking toward a battlefield. All had glowing red eyes, and they had come for one very specific purpose: War.

"What?" Jasper growled, leaping to her side in a blurred rush of movement, crushing the broken crystal under his feet. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her sharply. She seemed to rattle silently in his hands. "What, Alice?"

Emmett moved into my peripheral vision, his teeth bared while his eyes darted toward the window, anticipating an attack.

"They're coming for us," Alice and I whispered together, perfectly synchronized. "All of them."

Silence.

"Why?" Esme asked.

"When?" Jasper demanded in a voice like splintering ice. Renesmee's eyes were bright, focused on this new topic.

Alice's eyes didn't blink, but it was as if a veil covered them; they became perfectly blank. Only her mouth held on to her expression of horror. "Not long," she said. "There's snow on the forest, snow on the town. Little more than a month."

"Why?" Carlisle was the one to ask this time.

Esme answered. "They must have a reason. Maybe to see Renesmee. She is such a darling girl. . ." she trailed off when she saw none of us believed it.

"It came out of nowhere, Jasper. I wasn't looking for them, or even for us. I was just looking for Irina. She wasn't where I expected her to be. . . ." Alice trailed off, her eyes drifting again. She stared at nothing for a long second. Then her head jerked up, her eyes hard as flint. "She decided to go to them," Alice said. "Irina decided to go to the Volturi. And then they will decide.… It's as if they're waiting for her. Like their decision was already made, and just waiting on her. . . ."

It was silent again as we digested this. What would Irina tell the Volturi that would result in Alice's appalling vision? What did she know? Did she actually know anything damning enough to-?

"Can we stop her?" Jasper asked.

"There's no way. She's almost there."

"What is she doing?" Carlisle was asking, but I wasn't paying attention to the discussion now. All my focus was on the picture that was painstakingly coming together in my head.

"This isn't about Bella," Alice said hollowly. "They're all coming—Aro, Caius, Marcus, every member of the guard, even the wives."

"The wives never leave the tower," Jasper contradicted her in a flat voice. "Never. Not during the southern rebellion. Not when the Romanians tried to overthrow them. Not even when they were hunting the immortal children. Never."

"They're coming now," I murmured.  
"But why?" Carlisle said again. "We've done nothing! And if we had, what could we possibly do that would bring this down on us?"

"There are so many of us," I offered. "They must want to make sure that . . ." I didn't reveal the real reason I thought they might be after us.

"That doesn't answer the crucial question! Why?" Rosalie demanded.

"The immortal children," Carlisle murmured, sudden understanding lighting up his eyes for a moment.  
Renesmee jerked her head to look at him. _Explain!_

"Irina and her sisters...their 'mother' was killed many years ago because she was involved with beings we call immortal children. They are a taboo among our kind, Renesmee, and she probably assumed you were one."

_**Am I? **_she asked.  
"No, you are a hybrid. Immortal children are born human and turned when they are only children. They are frozen in that state. You were born and still remain as you are, growing so much every day, a true miracle of nature and magic."

_Oh, gag me_, I thought.

"Since immortal children are outlawed in our world, the Volturi will come and try to...kill you."  
_NOOOO! I don't want to die! I'm just a helpless little kid! You'll protect me, won't you? _she begged Carlisle.

"Of course I will," he reassured her, and damn if he didn't mean it.

Renesmee repeated her plea, looking into everyone's eyes in turn, until she got to Alice and me. _**You'll protect me, **_**won't **_**you, Alice?**_This time she sent an image of Jasper getting mangled to underline her point.

"I will protect my chosen family," Alice vowed. _Which doesn't include you, you little rat-faced imp, _she mentally added.

Then Renesmee turned to me. _**I know you'll protect me, daddy, **_she began, and finished with, _because I have Carlisle, and he won't give you a choice, _in a private thought meant for me alone.  
I concentrated hard on not grinding my teeth. "I will fight for the Cullens," I declared through gritted teeth. I did not consider Renesmee to be a Cullen. The Cullens were humans-turned-vampires; she was neither one.

"But what can we do?" Rosalie demanded.

"We fight," Emmett said calmly.

"We can't win," Jasper growled.

"Well, we can't run. Not with Demetri around." Emmett made a disgusted noise. He was not upset by the idea of the Volturi's tracker but by the idea of running away. "And I don't know that we _can't _win," he said. "There are a few options to consider. We don't have to fight alone."

"What, you mean our little wolf friends?" I scoffed. "You really expect them to help us?"

"I didn't mean the pack. Be realistic, though—do you think Jacob or Sam will ignore an invasion? Even if it wasn't about Nessie? Not to mention that, thanks to Irina, Aro might know about our alliance with the pack now, too. But I was thinking of our _other _friends."

Carlisle whispered, "Other friends we don't have to sentence to death."

"Hey, we'll let them decide," Emmett said in a placating tone. "I'm not saying they have to fight with us." I could see the plan refining itself in his head as he spoke. "If they'd just stand beside us, just long enough to make the Volturi hesitate. If we could force them to stop and listen. Though that might take away any reason for a fight. . . ." There was a hint of a smile on Emmett's face now.

"Yes," Esme said. "That makes sense, Emmett. All we need is for the Volturi to pause for one moment. Just long enough to listen."

I turned my head and squinted at Esme for a few moments. That was...surprisingly intelligent of her. Like she understood the situation, for once. If she really did, what might that mean? Did it mean anything at all?

"We'd need quite a show of witnesses," Rosalie said harshly, voicing her skepticism at getting such support, her voice bringing me back to the topic at hand.

Carlisle nodded in agreement, acting as if he hadn't heard the sarcasm in Rosalie's tone. "We can ask that much of our friends. Just to witness."

"We'd do it for them," Emmett said.

"We'll have to ask them just right," Alice murmured. "They'll have to be shown very carefully."

"Shown?" Jasper asked.

Alice's eyes glazed over. "Tanya's family," she said. "Siobhan's coven. Amun's. Some of the nomads—Garrett and Mary for certain. Maybe Alistair."

"What about Peter and Charlotte?" Jasper asked half fearfully, as if he hoped the answer was no, and his former partners in crime could be spared from the coming carnage.

"Maybe."

"The Amazons?" Carlisle asked. "Kachiri, Zafrina, and Senna?"

Alice seemed too deep into her vision to answer at first; finally she shuddered, and her eyes flickered back to the present. She met Carlisle's gaze for the tiniest part of a second, and then looked down.  
"I can't see." There was an image...something not clear enough for me to grasp. She had seen something, a flicker of...but Alice kept it hidden from me. Why? She was more experienced with her visions, could usually see the cause and effect behind most things before I could.

"What was that?" I asked, almost demanded. "That part in the jungle. Are we going to look for them?" Something in her vision was way off, and it was something she couldn't share with anyone, even her current closest ally, me.

"I can't see," Alice repeated, not meeting my eyes. "We'll have to split up and hurry—before the snow sticks to the ground. We have to round up whomever we can and get them here to show them." The silence was ominous for another long moment while Alice was in her trance. She blinked slowly when it was over, her eyes peculiarly opaque despite the fact that she was clearly in the present. "There is so much. We have to hurry," she whispered.

"Alice?" I asked. "That was too fast—I didn't understand. What was—?"

"I can't see!" she exploded back at me. "Jacob's almost here!"

Rosalie took a step toward the front door. "I'll deal with—"

"No, let him come," Alice said quickly, her voice straining higher with each word. She grabbed Jasper's hand and began pulling him toward the back door. "I'll see better away from Nessie, too. I need to go. I need to really concentrate. I need to see everything I can. I have to go. Come on, Jasper, there's no time to waste!" We all could hear Jacob on the stairs. Alice yanked, impatient, on Jasper's hand. He followed quickly, confusion in his eyes. They darted out the door into the silver night. "Hurry!" she called back to us. "You have to find them all!"

I thought I knew what she was doing with Jasper, and wished her all the best. This was her best opportunity to get him away from Renesmee's influence, at least for short periods of time, in the guise of planning her protection. Alice hoped that Renesmee's hold on him would weaken sufficiently to bring him out of the spell he was under. I didn't think it would work, but I hoped it would. We needed another ally.

"Find what?" Jacob asked, shutting the front door behind himself. "Where'd Alice go?"

No one answered.

Jacob shook the wet from his hair and pulled his arms through the sleeves of his t-shirt, his eyes on Renesmee. "Hey, I thought you guys would've gone hunting by now. . . ."  
His expression changed as the room's atmosphere finally touched him. He glanced down at the wet spot on the floor, the scattered roses, the fragments of crystal. His fingers quivered. "What?" he asked flatly. "What happened?"Jacob crossed the room in three long strides and dropped to his knees beside Renesmee and Carlisle. "Is she okay?" he demanded, touching her forehead, tilting his head as he listened to her heart. "Don't mess with me, please!"

"Nothing's wrong with Renesmee," Carlisle finally stated.

"Then who?"

"All of us, Jacob," he replied. "It's done. We've all been sentenced to die."

We sat there all night long, and Alice never came back. It wasn't until the sun rose and I knew that Renesmee would soon be stirring that I wondered for the first time what could possibly be taking Alice so long. I'd hoped to know more; to have some answers. My face felt permanently set into the fixed mask it had worn all night. Jacob was snoring in the corner, a mountain of fur on the floor, twitching anxiously in his sleep. Sam knew everything—the wolves were readying themselves for what was coming. Not that this preparation would do anything but get them killed with the rest of my "family."

"She's been gone a long time," Rosalie murmured, breaking the silence.

"Where could she be?" Emmett wondered, taking a step toward the door.

Esme put a hand on his arm. "We don't want to disturb . . ."

"She's never taken so long before," I said. Had she really made it? Were she and Jasper totally gone? Fresh panic filled me when I realized I might be in this all alone. "Carlisle, you don't think—something preemptive? Would Alice have had time to see if they sent someone for her?" I threw that out as a possibility, trying to keep Carlisle's thoughts elsewhere. If he thought Alice had escaped for good, he'd be even more vigilant in keeping me close. With the combined efforts of Carlisle and the demon baby, I was much more likely to fall under her spell, my own strength insufficient.

Emmett cussed loud enough that Jacob lurched to his feet with a growl. In the yard, his growl was echoed by his pack.

"Let's go!" Carlisle snapped, and we all hopped to. We had no choice; we were all bound to him.

"Stay with Renesmee!" Rosalie all but shrieked at Jacob as we sprinted through the door.

"Would they have been able to surprise her?" Carlisle asked, his voice as even as if he were standing motionless rather than running at full speed.

"I don't see how," I answered. "But Aro knows her better than anyone else. Better than I do."

"Is this a trap?" Emmett called from behind us.

"Maybe," I said. "There's no scent but Alice and Jasper. Where were they going?"

Alice and Jasper's trail was curling into a wide arc; it stretched first east of the house, but headed north on the other side of the river, and then back west again after a few miles. We recrossed the river, all jumping within a second of each other. I ran in the lead.

"Keep to the main trail—we're almost to the Quileute border," I ordered tersely. "Stay together. See if they turned north or south." Carlisle slowed a little, and looked from side to side, waiting for the trail to turn.

Then the wolf smell got suddenly stronger, and I snapped my head up and came to a sudden stop. The others froze, too. "Sam?" I asked flatly. "What is this?"

Sam came through the trees a few hundred yards away, walking quickly toward us in his human form, flanked by two big wolves—Paul and Jared. It took Sam a while to reach us; his human pace made me impatient. I didn't want time to think about what was happening. I wanted to be in motion, to be doing something. I wanted to have Alice here, to know beyond a doubt that she was on my side. I froze as I heard what Sam was thinking. Sam ignored me, looking straight at Carlisle as he stopped walking and began to vocalize his thoughts.

"Right after midnight, Alice and Jasper came to this place and asked permission to cross our land to the ocean. I granted them that and escorted them to the coast myself. They went immediately into the water and did not return. As we journeyed, Alice told me it was of the utmost importance that I say nothing to Jacob about seeing her until I spoke to you. I was to wait here for you to come looking for her and then give you this note. She told me to obey her as if all our lives depended on it."

"You did tell Jacob, though, didn't you?"

Sam snorted. "Of course. If you blood-suckers want to keep secrets from each other, that's your affair. We shapeshifters don't keep secrets from our own." Sam's face was grim and slightly contemptuous as he held out a folded sheet of paper, printed all over with small black text. It was a page out of a book; my sharp eyes read the printed words as Carlisle unfolded it to see the other side. The side facing me was the copyright page from _Oedipus Rex._A hint of my own scent blew off of it as Carlisle shook the paper flat. I realized it was a page torn from one of my books. Why had she gone to the trouble of doing that? It wasn't like we didn't have stationery in the house.

"Alice has decided to leave us," Carlisle whispered.

"What?" Rosalie cried.

Carlisle turned the page around so that we all could read:

**Don't look for us. There isn't time to waste. Remember: Tanya,Siobhan, Amun, Alistair, all the nomads you can find. We'll seek out Peter and Charlotte on our way. We're so sorry that we have to leave you this way, with no goodbyes or explanations. It's the only way for us. Good luck.**

We stood frozen again, the silence total but for the sound of the wolves' heartbeats, their breathing. Their thoughts were loud too, a virtual cacophony of telepathic voices. I was first to move, speaking in response to the question in Sam's head: _Have things degraded that much?_

"Yes, things are that dangerous."

"Enough that you would abandon your family?" Sam asked out loud, censure in his tone. He had not read the note before giving it to Carlisle. He was upset now; he regretted listening to Alice.

"We don't know what she saw," I said quickly. "Alice is neither unfeeling nor a coward. She just has more information than we do." I didn't know who I was trying to convince at this point, everyone else or myself.

"We would not—," Sam began.

"You are bound differently than we are," I snapped. "We each still have our free will."  
Sam's chin jerked up, and his eyes looked suddenly flat black as he bristled at the proverbial sucker-punch. _Oh, do you, now?_

"But you should heed the warning," I continued before he could retort. "This is not something you want to involve yourselves in. You can still avoid what Alice saw."

Sam smiled grimly. "We don't run away." Behind him, Paul snorted.

"Don't get your family slaughtered for pride," Carlisle interjected quietly.

_What a 'compassionate family man;' he is so full of it._

Sam looked at Carlisle with a softer expression. "As Edward pointed out, we don't have the same kind of freedom that you have. Renesmee is as much as part of our family now as she is yours. Jacob cannot abandon her, and we cannot abandon him." His eyes flickered to Alice's note, and he pressed his lips into a thin line.

"You don't know her," I warned.

"Do you?" Sam snapped back.

I opened my mouth and my mind to tell him exactly what I knew about Renesmee, when Carlisle put a hand on my shoulder. _**That's enough of that, Edward. **_"We have much to do, son. Whatever Alice's decision, we would be foolish not to follow her advice now. Let's go home and get to work." I immediately felt the influence of his binding on me; I could no longer speak to Sam in any capacity, following Carlisle's unspoken orders.

I nodded, grimacing. Behind me, I could hear Esme's quiet questions. Once again, she didn't actually grasp the situation, though she seemed to understand that Alice and Jasper were gone, probably for good, though not why.

"Thank you, Sam," Carlisle said.

"Right," Sam answered. "You think we shouldn't have let her through."

"You did the right thing," Carlisle told him. "Alice is free to do what she will. I wouldn't deny her that liberty." _Not since she's already gone, anyway_, he continued in his head.

If Alice were still here, it would be a different story. Carlisle had thought that with Jasper along, she would come back, since among the Cullens, Jasper was bound probably the most tightly with Renesmee through his empathy. To discover that she may actually escape, and Jasper with her, made his anger flare up briefly, stronger than he'd felt since the demon baby got him in her clutches. It quickly settled into embers though, thanks to Renesmee's damping influence.

I'd always thought of the Cullens as a whole, an indivisible unit. I was abruptly reminded that it had not always been so. Carlisle had created me, Esme, Rosalie and Emmett. We were physically linked by blood and venom. I never thought of Alice and Jasper as separate—as adopted into the family. But in truth, Alice had adopted the Cullens. She had shown up with her unconnected past, bringing Jasper with his, and fit herself into the family that was already there. Both she and Jasper had known another life outside the Cullen family. Had she really chosen to lead another new life after she'd seen that life with the Cullens was over? We were doomed, then, weren't we? There was no hope at all. Not one ray, one flicker that might have convinced Alice she had a chance at our side.

The bright morning air seemed thicker suddenly, blacker, as if physically darkened by my despair.

"I'm not going down without a fight," Emmett snarled low under his breath. "Alice told us what to do. Let's get it done."

The others nodded with determined expressions, and I realized that they were banking on whatever chance Alice had given us. That they were not going to give in to hopelessness and wait to die. Yes, we all would fight. What else was there? And apparently we would involve others, because Alice had said so before she'd left us. How could we not follow Alice's last warning? The wolves, too, would fight with us for Renesmee. We would fight, they would fight, and we all would die. I didn't feel the same resolve the others seemed to feel. Alice knew the odds. She was giving us the only chance she could see, but the chance was too slim for her to bet on it. For what? Why would she help us at all? Was it for me, and our companionship of not falling before the spell of the demon baby? For some affection she felt for our "family" all the years we were together?

Alice's note did not make me hopeful. If there were any way to avoid the coming slaughter, Alice would have stayed. I couldn't see another possibility. So it was something else she was giving me. Not a way to escape. But what else would she think that I wanted?

My thoughts abruptly turned darker. Perhaps it was an attempt to draw even more attention to us and our situation. That many vampires gathering in one location would surely bring all eyes in the vampire world on us. Was she hoping that the Volturi would come down so hard on us that there was no way Renesmee could survive the encounter? I had a feeling it was the last one. While destroying Renesmee was an ambitious goal, and in my opinion a noble and worthy one, I was not willing to sacrifice myself in order to achieve it. Unfortunately, that decision wasn't mine to make.

I felt already beaten as I turned my back on Sam's critical face and followed Carlisle toward home.

* * *

**A/N: Ok, so not so much suspense here as whiny despairing emo, but we're still into a lot of set-up. Hope you all continue to enjoy reading, and remember: constructive criticism is ALWAYS appreciated!**


	18. Waiting

OK! SO! Two-year-long hiatus, that was one heck of a writer's block, and apologies to all my regular readers. Hope everyone who started in the beginning gets to finish this. Onward!

Carlisle and the others were not idle when we got back. We'd been home for all of five minutes, and they were already prepared to leave. In the corner, Jacob was human again, with Renesmee on his lap, both of them watching us with wide eyes, in a way that I assure you wasn't creepy.

At all.

Rosalie had traded her silk wrap dress for a sturdy-looking pair of jeans, running shoes, and a button-down shirt. Esme was dressed similarly.

The atmosphere was more positive now than before; it felt good to us to be in action. Our hopes were pinned on Alice's instructions; we didn't stand a chance by ourselves.

"We're to stay here?" I asked, looking at Carlisle. I was not happy about that decision. Then again, I might be left alone with my little spawn...

"Alice said that we would have to show people Renesmee, and we would have to be careful about it," Carlisle said. "We'll send whoever we can find back here to you—Edward, you'll be the best at fielding that particular minefield." _**And Jacob should be more than enough to keep you in line around Renesmee.**_

_Dammit._ I gave one sharp nod, a bit sulky now. "There's a lot of ground to cover."

"You'll have your hands full here," Carlisle said. "Tanya's family will be here in the morning, and they have no idea why. First, you have to persuade them not to react the way Irina did. Second, you've got to find out what Alice meant about Eleazar. Then, after all that, will they stay to witness for us? It will start again as the others come—if we can persuade anyone to come in the first place." Carlisle sighed. "Your job may well be the hardest. We'll be back to help as soon as we can."

Carlisle put his hand on my shoulder for a second. I felt the weight of our bond through that simple touch, telling me to "behave." It nearly dragged me to my knees, it felt so heavy. Esme hugged all of us "kids", and Emmett punched me on the arm, dislocating it; his version of a "love tap."

Rosalie forced a hard smile for me, blew a kiss to Renesmee, and then gave Jacob a parting grimace.

"Good luck," I called to them on their way out the door.

"And to you," Carlisle said. "We'll all need it." _**And I don't need to tell you that we NEED their help, do I?**_

_**You just did, you ass. **_

_**So I know for sure we're on the same page. Happy persuading.**_

_**Will you just leave already?**_

I watched them leave, wishing I could feel whatever hope bolstered them.

Renesmee twisted in Jacob's arms to touch his cheek. "I don't know if Carlisle's friends will come. I hope so. Sounds like we're a little outnumbered right now," Jacob murmured to Renesmee. So Renesmee already understood only too clearly what was going on. The whole imprinted-werewolf-gives-the-object-of-his-imprinting-whatever-she wants thing was getting old fast; in fact, it was _already _old.

I looked carefully at her face. She did not look frightened, only anxious and very serious as she conversed with Jacob in her silent way. She was already very good at hiding what she felt; already a dangerous opponent.

"No, we can't help; we've got to stay here," he went on. "People are coming to see you, not the scenery."

Renesmee frowned at him.

"No, I don't have to go anywhere," he said to her. Then he looked at me, his face stunned by the realization that he might be wrong. "Do I?"

I hesitated.

"Spit it out," Jacob said, his voice raw with tension. He was right at his breaking point, just like the rest of us.

"The vampires who are coming to help us are not the same as we are," I said. "Tanya's family is the only one besides ours with a reverence for human life, and even they don't think much of werewolves. I think it might be safer—"

"I can take care of myself," Jacob interrupted.

"Safer for Renesmee," I continued, "if the choice to believe our story about her is not tainted by an association with werewolves."

"Some friends. They'd turn on you just because of who you hang out with now?" he scoffed.

"I think they would mostly be tolerant under normal circumstances. But you need to understand—accepting _Nessie_" -I said with a sneer "-will not be a simple thing for any of them. Why make it even the slightest bit harder?"

Carlisle had explained the laws about immortal children to Jacob last night. "The immortal children were really that bad?" he asked.

"You can't imagine the depth of the scars they've left in the collective vampire psyche."

"Edward . . ."

"I know, Jacob. I know how hard it is for you to be away from her. I can feel it, I can hear it-remember? We'll play it by ear— see how they react to her. In any case, Nessie is going to have to be incognito off and on in the next few weeks. She'll need to stay at the cottage until the right moment for us to introduce her. As long as you keep a safe distance from the main house..."

"I can do that. Company in the morning, huh?"

"Yes. The closest of our friends. In this particular case, it's probably better if we get things out in the open as soon as possible. You can stay here. Tanya knows about you. She'll be more open than the others, I think." I hoped.

"Right."

"You should tell Sam what's going on. There might be strangers in the woods soon."

"Good point." Jacob's teeth ground together, and I could see that he shared Sam's feelings about what Alice and Jasper had done. His mental grumblings were colorful and almost amusing, except I wasn't exactly in the mood to be amused right then.

While they were talking, I wandered toward the back windows, trying to look distracted and anxious. Not a difficult thing to do.

Renesmee reached for Jacob again, and he held his arms open. She launched herself into them, and nestled her head against his neck. I didn't know if I could stand this. As much as I feared for my life, for the rest my surrogate family's, it was not the same as the gut-wrenching terror I felt of my daughter. There had to be a way to eliminate her, even if that was the only thing I could do.

She showed me my own face, Jacob's, Rosalie's, Esme's, Carlisle's, Alice's, Jasper's, flipping through all our family's faces faster and faster. Seth and Leah. Over and over again. Imagining us alternately as slaves, as worshippers, as corpses, examples of those who would defy her. She was mocking me and my relative impotence in this situation. My actions were thoroughly reined in by my sire, even while he was far away; such was the influence of his parting "touch."

I wondered briefly what she was doing right now. The right thing for Alice, I supposed. I hated thinking of her that way, that she might have escaped and left me in this situation, but how else could the situation be understood?

There was so much to think about. How was I going to explain things to Tanya's family in the morning? What if they reacted like Irina? What if it turned into a fight?

I didn't know how to fight. Not like Jasper, who had commanded an army, or Emmett, who depended on his formidable physical strength to overpower his opponents. I never had to learn to fight in a melee setting; my experiences up til now had been either against humans, who couldn't give me a fair fight, or one-on-one like with James, and considering how well _that _fight went, I thought I should at least brush up. Could I learn in just a month?

Jacob was more comfortable in his wolf form at the moment; the stress was easier dealt with when he felt ready for a fight. Even though there wasn't one waiting, except for me, if he ever stepped away from that baby. I wished that I could feel the same, could feel ready. He didn't even run in the woods anymore, but left all the guarding to his "pack" again.

"Hey, Edward," Jacob said after several hours of virtual silence had slipped by. "Tell me about these 'Volturi.' What would you say their biggest advantage is? Do they even _have _an exploitable weakness?"

"Alec and Jane are their greatest offense," I said bluntly. He and the other wolves might as well know what we would be dealing with. "Their defensive players rarely see any real action." I gave him a small mental taste of Jane's power, using my experience from when I ran to Italy the last time.

He winced. "Because Jane can burn you where you stand—mentally at least," Jacob mused. "What does Alec do? You say he's even more dangerous than Jane?"

"Yes. In a way, he is the antidote to Jane. She makes you feel the worst pain imaginable. Alec, on the other hand, makes you feel nothing. Absolutely nothing. Sometimes, when the Volturi are feeling 'kind,' they have Alec anesthetize someone before he is executed. If he has surrendered or pleased them in some other way."

"Anesthetic? Doesn't seem more dangerous than Jane."

"He cuts off your senses altogether. No pain, but also no sight or sound or smell. Total sensory deprivation. You are utterly alone in the blackness. You don't even feel it when they burn you, or whatever else they might do. Or you suddenly lose track of your surroundings completely, if you're on the move."

Jacob shivered. I could hear his terrified thoughts. Was this the best we could hope for? To not see or feel death when it came?

"That would make him only equally as dangerous as Jane," I went on, "in that they both can incapacitate you, make you into a helpless target. The difference between them is like the difference between Aro and me. Aro hears the mind of only one person at a time. Jane can only hurt the one object of her focus. I can hear everyone at the same time."

Jacob went still as he finally got where I was going with that. "And Alec can incapacitate us all at the same time?" he whispered.

"Yes," I said. "If he uses his gift against us, we will all stand blind and deaf until they get around to killing us—maybe they'll simply burn us without bothering to tear us apart first. Oh, we could try to fight, but we'll be more likely to hurt one another than we would be to hurt one of them."

We stood in silence for a few seconds.

I had an abrupt, ironic thought. If only we had a power that could combat powers like that. Something like the power of nullification. Something like...Bella's power. If she were still around, still here, it wouldn't even be an issue of fighting. The Volturi would likely be effectively impotent without their powers.

"I have to learn everything. As much as you can possibly cram into my head in the next month," Jacob murmured.

I didn't know much about the rest of the Volturi guard, besides Demetri. . . I considered Demetri. Without a doubt, he would be a fighter. There was no other way he could have survived so long, always at the spear point of any attack. And he must always lead, because he was their tracker—the best tracker in the world, no doubt. If there had been one better, the Volturi would have traded up. Aro didn't surround himself with second best.

If Demetri didn't exist, then we could run. Whoever was left of us, in any case.

And… if Demetri didn't exist, then Alice and Jasper could be safe forever. Is that what Alice had seen? That _that_ part of our family would continue? The two of them, at the very least. Suddenly I had an urge to pop her little pixie face right in the nose. That traitorous bitch.

"Demetri is mine," I said in a hard, tight voice. I looked at him quickly and saw that his expression had turned violent.

"Um, ok. Why?" Jacob asked.

I didn't answer at first. He was about to ask again when I finally settled on saying, "For Alice. It's the only thanks I can give her now for the last fifty years."

"Eleazar knows everything when it comes to the Volturi. I forgot you didn't know. He used to be one of them." I hissed involuntarily.

Jacob growled beside me. "What?" he demanded, picturing the dark-haired man at my wedding who was wrapped in a long, ashy cloak.

I smiled a little and spun another tale. It had been a long time since I had had to use this method of persuasion with another person. "Eleazar is a very gentle person. He wasn't entirely happy with the Volturi, but he respected the law and its need to be upheld. He felt he was working toward the greater good. He doesn't regret his time with them. But when he found Carmen, he found his place in this world. They are very similar people, both very compassionate for vampires. They met Tanya and her sisters, and they never looked back. They are well suited to this lifestyle. If they'd never found Tanya, I imagine they would have eventually discovered a way to live without human blood on their own."

I glanced at Jacob and answered his silent question. "No, he wasn't one of their warriors, so to speak. He had a gift they found convenient."

_So what's his gift? _Came Jacob's idle thought.

"He has an instinctive feel for the gifts of others—the extra abilities that some vampires have," I told him. "He could give Aro a general idea of what any given vampire was capable of just by being in proximity with him or her. This was helpful when the Volturi went into battle. He could warn them if someone in the opposing coven had a skill that might give them some trouble. More often, the warning would give Aro the chance to save someone who might be useful to him. Eleazar's gift works even with humans, to an extent. He has to really concentrate with humans, though, because the latent ability is so nebulous. Aro would have him test the people who wanted to join, to see if they had any potential. Aro was sorry to see him go."

"They let him go?" Jacob asked, one eyebrow raised. "Just like that?"

My smile twisted a little. "The Volturi aren't _supposed_ to be the villains, the way they seem to you. They are the foundation of our peace and civilization," I recited, textbook-perfect. "Each member of the guard chooses to serve them. It's quite prestigious; they all are proud to be there, not forced to be there."

Jacob scowled at the ground.

"Do you really think we can make them stop and listen?"

I hesitated and then shrugged. "If we find enough friends to stand beside us. Maybe." If. I suddenly felt the urgency of what we had before us today.

"Tanya shouldn't be too much longer," I said. "We need to be ready."

How to be ready, though? We arranged and rearranged, thought and rethought. Renesmee in full view? Or hidden at first? Jacob in the room? Or outside? He'd told his pack to stay close but invisible. Should he do the same? In the end, Renesmee, Jacob—in his human form again—and I waited around the corner from the front door in the dining room, sitting at the big polished table. Jacob let go of Renesmee; he wanted space in case he had to phase quickly.

I thought back to my last encounter with Tanya-and her new boyfriend. Now _that_ was a memorable meeting. Unfortunately, it gave me zero insight as to how the upcoming meeting would go. I leaned motionlessly against the back window wall, staring toward the front door. I wasn't really seeing the room in front of me; I listened to the cars zooming past out on the freeway, none of them slowing.

Renesmee nestled into the sofa, looking at Jacob "What if they don't like me?" she whispered, and both our eyes flashed to her face.

"Of course they'll—," Jacob started to say, but I silenced him with a look.

"They don't understand you, Renesmee, because they've never met anyone like you," I told her, not wanting to say anything to put Jacob further on his guard around me.

"Getting them to understand is the problem," Jacob added.

She sighed, and in my head flashed pictures of all of us in one quick burst. Vampire, human, werewolf. Under her control. I had to hand it to her, she knew exactly what she wanted out of life.

"You're special, that's not a bad thing," he continued.

She shook her head in disagreement. She thought of our strained faces and said, "This is my fault." That little imp!

_**Have you no shame, you little imp? Fishing for compliments like that. You only said that so Jacob will tell you it's not.**_

_**Duh.**_

"No," Jacob said, but before we could say anything else, we heard the sound we'd been waiting for: the slowing of an engine on the freeway, the tires moving from pavement to soft dirt. I darted around the corner to stand waiting by the door. Renesmee hid in my hair. Jacob and I stared at each other across the table, desperation on our faces.

The car moved quickly through the woods. We heard it pull into the meadow and stop by the front porch. Four doors opened and closed. They didn't speak as they approached the door. I opened it before they could knock.

"Edward!" a female voice enthused. Tanya. How...nice.

"Hello, Tanya. Kate, Eleazar, Carmen." They all murmured hellos.

"Carlisle said he needed to talk to us right away," Tanya said. "What's the problem? Trouble with the werewolves?"

Jacob rolled his eyes and deliberately thought some very rude things that I chose not to repeat to our guests.

"No," I said. "Our truce with the werewolves is stronger than ever."

"Aren't you going to invite us in?" Tanya asked, continued without waiting for an answer, "Where's Carlisle?"

"Carlisle had to leave."

There was a short silence. It was kind of awkward.

"What's going on, Edward?" Tanya demanded.

"If you could give me the benefit of the doubt for just a few minutes," I answered. "I have something difficult to explain, and I'll need you to be open-minded until you understand."

"Is Carlisle all right?" Eleazar asked anxiously.

"None of us is all right, Eleazar," I said, and then he patted something, maybe Eleazar's shoulder.

"But physically, Carlisle is fine."

"Physically?" Tanya asked sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that my entire family is in very grave danger. But before I explain, I ask for your promise. Listen to everything I say before you react. I am begging you to hear me out."

A longer silence.

"We're listening," Tanya finally said. "We will hear it all before we judge."

"Thank you, Tanya," I said heavily. "We wouldn't involve you in this if we had any other choice."  
I gestured them inside, and they all stepped through the doorway.

Tanya sniffed. "I knew those werewolves were involved," she muttered.

"Yes, and they're on _our_ side. Again."

The reminder silenced Tanya. "Tell us about the danger, Edward," she said sullenly. "We'll listen, and we'll be on your side, probably."

I took a deep breath. "I'd like you to witness for yourselves first. Listen—in the other room. What do you hear?"

It was quiet, and then there was movement.

"Just listen first, please," I said.

"A werewolf, I assume. I can hear his heart," Tanya said.

"What else?" I asked.

They went silent, listening with more concentration.

"What is that thrumming?" Carmen asked. "Is that… some kind of a bird?"

"No, but remember what you're hearing. Now, what do you smell? Besides the werewolf."

"Is there a human here?" Eleazar whispered.

"No," Tanya disagreed. "It's not human… but… closer to human than the rest of the scents here. What is that, Edward? I don't think I've ever smelled that fragrance before."

"I highly doubt you have, Tanya. Please, please remember that this is something entirely new to you. Throw away your preconceived notions."

"I promised you I would listen, Edward."

"All right, then. Jacob? Bring out Renesmee, please."

He took one step into the bigger room and then froze, unable to force myself farther forward. Renesmee took a deep breath and then peeped out from under his hair, her little shoulders tight, acting all shy.

Tanya skittered back four steps, her strawberry curls quivering, like a human confronted by a venomous snake. Kate jumped back all the way to the front door and braced herself against the wall there. A shocked hiss came from between her clenched teeth. Eleazar threw himself in front of Carmen in a protective crouch.

"Oh please," I heard Jacob complain under his breath.  
Iput his arm around Renesmee and me. "You promised to listen," he reminded them.

"Some things cannot be heard!" Tanya exclaimed. "How could you, Edward? Do you not know what this means?"

"We have to get out of here," Kate said anxiously, her hand on the doorknob.

"I. . ." Eleazar seemed beyond words.

"Wait," I said, his voice harder now. "Remember what you hear, what yousmell. Renesmee is not what you think she is."

"There are no exceptions to this rule, Edward," Tanya snapped back.

"Tanya," I said sharply, "you can hear her heartbeat! Stop and think about what that means."

"Her heartbeat?" Carmen whispered, peering around Eleazar's shoulder.

"She's not a full vampire child," Ianswered, directing his attention toward Carmen's less hostile expression. "She is half-human."

The four vampires stared at him like he was speaking a language none of them knew.

"Hear me." Edward's voice shifted into a smooth velvet tone of persuasion.

"Renesmee is one of a kind. I am her father. Not her creator—her biological father."

Tanya's head was shaking, just a tiny movement.

"Edward, you can't expect us to—," Eleazar started to say.

"Tell me another explanation that fits, Eleazar. You can feel the warmth of her body in the air. Blood runs in her veins, Eleazar. You can smell it."

"How?" Kate breathed.

"Bella is her biological mother," Itold her. "She conceived, carried, and gave birth to Renesmee while she was still human. It nearly killed her. I was hard-pressed to get enough venom into her heart to save her."

"I've never heard of such a thing," Eleazar said. His shoulders were still stiff, his expression cold.  
"Physical relationships between vampires and humans are not common," Ianswered, a bit of dark humor in his tone now. "Human survivors of such trysts are even less common. Wouldn't you agree, cousins?"

Both Kate and Tanya scowled at him.

"Come now, Eleazar. Surely you can see the resemblance."

It was Carmen who responded to Edward's words. She stepped around Eleazar, ignoring his half-articulated warning, and walked carefully to stand right in front of me. She leaned down slightly, looking carefully into Renesmee's face. "You seem to have your mother's eyes," she said in a low, calm voice, "but your father's face." And then, as if she could not help herself, she smiled at Renesmee. "Do you speak, little one?"

Renesmee's answering smile was dazzling. "Yes," Renesmee answered in her trilling high soprano. All of Tanya's family flinched at the sound of her voice except for Carmen. "But I can show you more than I can tell you."

She placed her little dimpled hand on Carmen's cheek.  
Carmen stiffened like an electric shock had run through her. Eleazar was at her side in an instant, his hands on her shoulders as if to yank her away.

"Wait," Carmen said breathlessly, her unblinking eyes locked on Renesmee's. Renesmee "showed" Carmen her explanation for a long time. I had a front row seat to the manipulation of Carmen's mind and emotions. I could see and feel the moment when Carmen realized what was happening, but Renesmee was already too deep in her mind for the knowledge to do Carmen any good.

"What's Nessie showing her?" Jacob grumbled under his breath.

"Everything," I murmured.

Another minute passed, and Renesmee dropped her hand from Carmen's face. She smiled winningly at the stunned vampire.

"She really is your daughter, isn't she?" Carmen breathed, switching her wide topaz eyes to my face. "Such a vivid gift! It could only have come from a very gifted father."

"Do you believe what she showed you?" I asked, resigned.

"Without a doubt," Carmen said simply.

Eleazar's face was rigid with distress. "Carmen!"

Carmen took his hands into her own and squeezed them. "Impossible as it seems, Edward has told you nothing but truth. Let the child show you. Carmen nudged Eleazar closer to her and then nodded at Renesmee. "Show him, mi querida." Renesmee grinned, clearly delighted with Carmen's acceptance, and touched Eleazar lightly on the forehead.

"Ay caray!" he spit, and jerked away from her.

"What did she do to you?" Tanya demanded, coming closer warily. Kate crept forward, too.

"She's just trying to show you her side of the story," Carmen told him in a soothing voice.  
Renesmee frowned impatiently. "Watch, please," she commanded Eleazar. She stretched her hand out to him and then left a few inches between her fingers and his face, waiting.

Eleazar eyed her suspiciously and then glanced at Carmen for help. She nodded encouragingly. Eleazar took a deep breath and then leaned closer until his forehead touched her hand again. He shuddered when it began but held still this time, his eyes closed in concentration. "Ahh," he said when his eyes reopened a few minutes later. "I see."

Renesmee smiled at him. He hesitated, then smiled a slightly unwilling smile in response.

"Eleazar?" Tanya asked.

"It's all true, Tanya. This is no immortal child. She's half-human. Come. See for yourself."

In silence, Tanya took her turn standing warily before me, and then Kate, both showing shock as that first image hit them with Renesmee's touch. But then, just like Carmen and Eleazar, they seemed completely won over as soon as it was done.

"Thank you for listening," he said quietly.

"But there is the grave danger you warned us of," Tanya said. "Not directly from this child, I see, but surely from the Volturi, then. How did they find out about her? When are they coming?"  
I was not surprised at her quick understanding. After all, what could possibly be a threat to a family as strong as mine? Only the Volturi.

"When Bella saw Irina that day in the mountains," I explained, "she had Renesmee with her."

Kate hissed, her eyes narrowing to slits. "Irina did this? To you? To Carlisle? Irina?"

"No," Tanya whispered. "Someone else . . ."

"Alice saw her go to them," I said. I wondered if the others noticed the way winced just slightly when he spoke Alice's name.

"How could she do this thing?" Eleazar asked of no one.

"Imagine if you had seen Renesmee only from a distance. If you had not waited for our explanation."

Tanya's eyes tightened. "No matter what she thought… You are our family."

"There's nothing we can do about Irina's choice now. It's too late. Alice gave us a month."

Both Tanya's and Eleazar's heads cocked to one side. Kate's brow furrowed.

"So long?" Eleazar asked.

"They are all coming. That must take some preparation."

Eleazar gasped. "The entire guard?"

"Not just the guard," I said, his jaw straining tight. "Aro, Caius, Marcus. Even the wives."

Shock glazed over all their eyes.

"Impossible," Eleazar said blankly.

"I would have said the same two days ago," I said.

Eleazar scowled, and when he spoke it was nearly a growl. "But that doesn't make any sense. Why would they put themselves and the wives in danger?"

"It doesn't make sense from that angle. Alice said there was more to this than just punishment for what they think we've done. She thought you could help us."

"More than punishment? But what else is there?" Eleazar started pacing, stalking toward the door and back again as if he were alone here, his eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the floor.

"Where are the others, Edward? Carlisle and Alice and the rest?" Tanya asked.

I answered only part of her question, since technically I only knew part of the answer. "Looking for friends who might help us."

Tanya leaned toward me, holding her hands out in front of her. "Edward, no matter how many friends you gather, we can't help you win. We can only die with you. You must know that. Of course, perhaps the four of us deserve that after what Irina has done now, after how we've failed you in the past—for her sake that time as well."

I shook my head quickly. "We're not asking you to fight and die with us, Tanya. You know Carlisle would never ask for that." _They would scoff and flounce off in a heartbeat if they did. Although, if Renesmee asked now..._

"Then what, Edward?"

"We're just looking for witnesses. If we can make them pause, just for a moment. If they would let us explain . . ." I gulped, led on by the onus of Carlisle's influence. "It's difficult to doubt our story when you see it for yourself."

Tanya nodded slowly. "Do you think her past will matter to them so much?"

"Only as it foreshadows her future. The point of the restriction was to protect us from exposure, from the excesses of children who could not be tamed."

"I'm not dangerous at all," Renesmee interjected. "I never hurt anybody. I love humans. And wolf-people like my Jacob." She reached back to pat Jacob's arm.

Tanya and Kate exchanged a quick glance.

"If Irina had not come so soon," I mused, "we could have avoided all of this. Renesmee grows at an unprecedented rate. By the time the month is past, she'll have gained another half year of development."

"Well, that is something we can certainly witness," Carmen said in a decided tone. "We'll be able to promise that we've seen her mature ourselves. How could the Volturi ignore such evidence?"

Eleazar mumbled, "How, indeed?" but he did not look up, and continued pacing.

"Yes, we can witness for you," Tanya said. "Certainly that much. We will consider what more we might do."

"Tanya," I protested, hearing more in her thoughts than there was in her words, "we don't expect you to fight with us." _In fact, please don't. It would suggest that you haven't in fact been completely taken over by the little monster here. _Unfortunately, I couldn't communicate the thought to her; even if I could have, at this point it wouldn't have done any good.

"If the Volturi won't pause to listen to our witness, we cannot simply stand by," Tanya insisted. "Of course, I should only speak for myself."

Kate snorted. "Do you really doubt me so much, sister?"

Tanya smiled widely at her. "It is a suicide mission, after all."

Kate grinned back and shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm in."

"I, too, will do what I can to protect the child," Carmen agreed. Then, as if she couldn't resist, she held her arms out toward Renesmee. Actually, I was pretty sure she couldn't at that point. "May I hold you, bebé linda?"

Renesmee reached eagerly toward Carmen, delighted with her new friend. Carmen hugged her close, murmuring to her in Spanish. Renesmee looked into her eyes.

It was like it had been before with all the Cullens, except me and Alice of course. Renesmee was irresistible. What was it about her that drew everyone to her, that made them willing even to pledge their lives in her defense? Was it a characteristic of being a half-human, half-vampire child? Or just a product of my telepathy and Bella's own ability? Whatever the explanation, it meant that Renesmee could manipulate nearly anyone and everyone into helping us.

For a moment I thought that maybe what we were attempting might be possible. Then I remembered that Alice the Seer had left us, and my hope vanished as quickly as it had appeared.


End file.
